And Then Along Came Winter
by DreamEscape16
Summary: She's in Washington, uncovering the truth of League of Assassins for Oliver, but her life becomes compromised when she rescues a man with long hair and a metal arm. Little does she know that he is the only person who can save her once dark secrets are unveiled.
1. Chapter 1

**And Then Along Came Winter**

**All characters belong to Marvel and DC Comics**

**I own nothing**

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><p><strong>{1}<strong>

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><p>Felicity was on a mission, undercover in Washington DC, not because Oliver asked her to infiltrate a certain database that became the main point of interest for the League of Assassins, not to mention the harvester of mortality and immortal war lord of world reformation-Ra's al Gul.<p>

Not to mention that a new and powerful enhancing serum was being cultivated underground and experimented on condemned and imprisoned mercenaries from South America borders.

She was on guarded, had her GPS tracking set in her mobile phone with Oliver's number on the top of the caller's list and also carried a can of mace in her handbag. She knew it was necessary to prepare oneself in case of an attack from the trained and lethal assassin army. She knew Oliver had devised a back strategy, even though she was being used as the bait, and entering the nest of danger.

Ultimately, the young Queen heir had expected SHIELD, another point of interest of Ra's al Ghul's caliber of seizing information on mystical artifacts, including locations of forgotten tombs that housed Lazarus Pits, his life force of restoring his frailty and making his body anew for the new world order. Felicity spent roughly around three weeks in Manhattan, researching ancient texts and discovering new truths, gray shaded algorithms hidden form the naked eyes of humanity. It turned out that the League of Assassins had an alliance with an terrorist organization who used the Greek serpent -many headed monster : Lernaean Hydra as their face for resistance and power.

Now, HYDRA was just fragments of ruins, and SHIELD no longer existed. The government raked away all the data-mining from their networks of databases. The Avengers were now under their own command, without Nick Fury giving his orders in the shadows.

Felicity had a gut feeling that the League of Assassins had put their focus on the super-soldier serum, the substance that turned a skinny and ill Brooklyn kid into the resilient and noble-hearted Captain America. She had also dug up files from an KBG database with background information on another super-soldier. It was a 'ghost file' a dead end that lead to a tragic conclusion of the test subject's survival.

The name written in Russian was James Buchanan Barnes, the best friend to Steven Grant Rogers aka Captain America. The information the documents contain were horrific to unveil; he was a victim of subornation and mind-numbing torture. A twisted Swiss doctor named Armin Zola was in charge of the operations, and the process of evolving a good man into a killing machine. The rest of the file was inconclusive and pages were missing, and Felicity knew something else needed to become decoded.

She expected to find the truth in the lost eyes of a nameless man.

It was a cold, and terrible late November night; a slant of moonlight shone through the curtains of falling snow that blanketed the desolated area. Huddled in a corner inside a vacant alleyway, near the Smithson museum. His slender and muscular body garbed in a black tactical uniform-leather jacket, vest and gloves. His knees tucked to his chest, metal forearm cradled protectively over his graven waist. His head narrowed, long, brown locks of drenched, matted chestnut draped over his square jaw line-he was stoic in movement until the sounds of heels clicking lulled him out of the drifts of torture.

"What the hell happened to you?"

His head flew up, feral, guarded azure blue eyes concealed by runny dark makeup as it ran over his jagged curvatures. He set his jaw hard and met dark eyes of a homeless woman, her face ashen and lips grimy. She carried an hostile poise, and a knife clutched in her gloved hand. "What the hell is a matter with you? Are you fixed?" she boldly asked, licking her lips and staring at his obscured face-his pale blue eyes were soulless, no crescents of light; just full of controlled darkness. "Got any cash?"

He shook his head slowly, and remained silent.

Annoyed, she pointed the tip of the blade down at his throat. "Your blood will get me a free pass for a nightly fix. Say still, I promise to make this quick and painless." she coldly said, preparing to jab the knife into his jugular. He was weakened by the lack of nourishment, his right bone dissociated and tucked under a tattered leather sleeve and his body was fighting a fever. He was in no condition to defend himself. He could barely move. "Do you like to feel pain?"

Suddenly a sound of running heels clicking on the snow covered asphalt, drove her attention to turn and glare dangerously at a lithe, golden haired woman charging after her.

"Hey," Felicity yelled out, her tone firm and bold. "Why don't you pick on somebody your size," she snarled, and lifted her leg up, removing her shoe and whipped it at the mugger's large hand, knocking the knife into the a dented trash can leaned up against the wall. She smiled brightly, feeling confident and heroic with her noble deed. She lifted her fist to the woman, shaking it with a threat bubbling in her veins. "Clear out .." she paused in her words, trying to configure out her warning. "Unless you want my other shoe lodged in your face."

The ratty, plump woman grunted, "You're not worth my time." Then, she staggered away, coughing.

Inhaling the crisp air, Felicity, winced as she limped over the trash can, and picked up her shoe. She slipped it on, and then finally looked down to see the disheveled man staring back at her. He was unshaven with briskly whispers swathed over his heavy and chiseled jaw. His sharp cheekbones were gaunt, and his eyes were icy -almost a steel blue hidden beneath seams of dark, scraggly hair. He was in desperate need of a shower-two showers at the least and his full lips were bruised with smudges of dried blood.

He blinked twice clearing the fog out of his gaze, and when he saw her staring in the dim streetlight—her lithe frame pressed against the brick wall. She was fully dressed in a light blue winter-bright and welcoming. Black heeled shoes-iron straight bleached-golden hair cascades down her mid back and her eyes were the color of seawater-mixtures of aqua and gray. He knew she wasn't a threat, she was beautiful, and held her own regard. He sort of twitched his lips into a smirk, gazing at her eyeglasses.

"It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. I can't believe I even did that. So out of character for me." Felicity rambled, shaking her head, shamelessly. She crouched down to his level, but he blanched aback. She smiled sweetly at him and placed her hand over his armored knee. "You do realize that it's almost below freezing?" she blew out a heavy breath, to reveal to him the degree of the temperature.

His weather beaten face narrowed, and his blue, spooked eyes glinted in the thick shadows. He was distressed.

Apparently, he wasn't one for conversation, because his lips straightened and quivered, looking around the area, systematically, and a hint of worry shrouded over his paled face.

"Look, I can only help you if you talk to me." She urged, using a gentle whisper. "If you ask me not talking to someone, its just a little creepy." She leaned in closer and stared intently into his intense, unnerved blue eyes. She had been used to the silent treatment with Oliver-Green Arrow, but she felt unsettled. "Can you talk? If you can't I understand perfectly and I ..."

"I can talk," he said, his chilled lips parted, and a gruff, but very decadent Russian tone emerged from his throat. He looked away for a second and then focused his stare on her, furrowing his eyebrows and rubbing his broken arm, while asking, "Why did you risk your life to save me?" he eyed her with suspicion.

"Oh," she swallowed, words clogged in her throat. "That was nothing. I couldn't stand and watch you get hurt. It wasn't right. Besides it's in human nature to react and save someone from danger. At least that's what a good friend of mine tells me... And technically I'm supposed to be doing his dirty work. Finding the ties for loose ends, and not talking to a rugged, but handsome stranger." Her words faltered, and her bit her lip. "Sorry that didn't sound-"

"It's fine." He whispered out an interruption, giving her a short nod, his chin settling against his leather chest armor. She looked at his arm and then back at his face. He was in pain...uncomfortable and utterly afraid.

"Why are you rubbing your arm?" she wondered, concern gleaming in her bright eyes. He reacted in a quick, defensive motion, seizing her wrist. She didn't struggle. "You're hurt, aren't you?"

"I heal quick," he grimaced, and then he unclasped his gloved fingers off her thinned wrist. He tore his darkened blue eyes away from her, feeling ashamed of hurting her."My arm is broken. I was in a fight and someone -I think a friend it this. I can't remember."

"Can I see your arm? I won't anything. I do know how to attend injured bones. Call it a part of my evening job."

He bit his lips, a little apprehensive, and then he nodded, nervously.

Felicity brushed her hair back, and adjusted her glasses. She removed her glove, allowing her warm fingers to brush heat over his blemished skin. Carefully, she removed her hand upwards, feeling the angulation of the bones, and alignment of the dislocated joints. Everything was intact, her diagnosis was a fracture in his forearm and he separated shoulder. Easy, but painful fix.

"Okay, its not really serious. You need medical attention -Knowing your stubborn type that's not going to happen. So I guess if you want I can fix you."

The intimating man opened his mouth, a weak breath escaped, and then finally asked, "You're not afraid of me..I don't scare you?"

"Not really," she said, applying heat over his swollen limb. "I've seen my fair share of freaks and serial killers. You're like a breath of fresh air-apart from the growing smell of body odor and blood."

Faintly, his lips upturned into a small, frail hint of a smile.

"Do you a place to stay? A apartment?"

He shook his head, "I don't have a home. I have nowhere to go. I came here looking for someone, but I got confused."

"Alright, let me think," she chewed on her lip, complicating on her decision. "Obviously, you're suffering from memory loss. You have all the signs, but I don't think you have a damaged psyche. You don't look that a borderline psychopath, but I have my limits when it comes to trusting people that don't even have a name. Do you have a name?" she drawled, her low voice laced with curiosity. Her friendly blue eyes examined over the number of bruises and gashes on his sweaty neck. "Lucky for you, I'm used to seeing a lot of red."

He smirked lightly, "You can call me anything you want. I will respond to it."

"I have a few names on my mind," Felicity teased, involuntary turning her gaze to the street lamp outside the alley. "I think you deserve a good name." She tentatively caressed his scruffy cheek with her hand, "Don't worry it's not going to be Ralph or Oliver." She smirked, and looked deeply into his guarded, and haunted blue eyes. He reminded her of a stray mutt, neglected and confused. He also carried warmth and strength-almost like that soldier from the old HYDRA file. "You like look a James to me."

"James," he repeated, it felt familiar for him to say that name. "I like that name."

She half- smiled. "Good, because it was the one that suits you, and now we can give each other a proper introduction." she said, straightening to her heels, extending out her hand. "My name is Felicity. Don't worry I'm not a secret agent or a doctor. Just a high tech computer nerd with no social life." She shifted a little, feeling embarrassed, and then looked at her watch. "It's almost closing hour, but I think we can still make it."

James furrowed his eyebrows, uneasy.

"Do you want to grab a coffee and maybe a muffin? I think you haven't eaten in a few days."

"I don't want to waste your time," he dropped his eyes to the ground, stuffing his gloved hands into the pockets of his jacket. "I'm not someone who people like to be around with, Felicity."

She stiffened her lips, shaking her head. "You're very nice and normal-"

"Normal," he scoffed, his face hardened and his voice gruff. "I have a metal arm."

"So, I have IQ above the genius level and I'm not even a real blond." she replied, lowering herself down to him. "We're both in the same category of being abnormal in society. I'm pretty sure we can go have coffee like normal people."

Instead of being the urge to ran, he nodded and placed his shaking hand into hers, interlocking his metal fingers against her flesh and bone. She helped him to his boots. It felt good to feel human touch, without shudders erupting in his body. He felt calm with her, guiding him through the snow.

Felicity felt her heart beating, but she kept her eyes leveled on his handsome, and youthful face. "After we get our coffee, I will bring you someplace safe and fix your arm."

He leaned his exhausted body against her petite frame, "Thank you, Felicity."

Hearing that gentle voice ghost from his lips, Felicity froze, and almost choked on her words, "For what, James?"

"Saving me." he murmured.

She smiled to herself, and squeezed his metal hand with her own.

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><p><em>AN : A big thank to my amazing and talented Beta Reader._


	2. Chapter 2

**{2}**

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><p>For a moment, Felicity turned her focus at the white ceramic mug in front of her, staring. A light mount of cream with swirls of chocolate ignited her senses, fingers curled over the handle as she listened to conversations around her. She felt like she was frozen in time, glimpses of people moving from the counter to the doors and the bustling annoyance of traffic pulsed in her ear drums. Her scrutiny never changed in split second as hint of rose brightened her face. She'd been out of her element.<p>

She didn't know what to say to him. The situation was beyond her mental capability of social limitations because she had placed herself in a risk zone. And Oliver wasn't looming behind her back like a silent wraith, telling her the dangers of engaging with the enemy. Was this homeless man dangerous? He played the part well, she had to admit, but he also was displaced. She couldn't allow herself to feel pity for him. She had to keep her barriers up at all times and not let him invade her territory. This was strange and uncomfortable. It was unexpected.

It was torture.

The coffee house was quint, dim lightening, a blanket of different aroma permeated the air with a heavily scent of melting chocolate glazed over greasy and fattening doughnuts. The streets were slick from the fresh downpour, and the amber glow reflected over her glasses, she felt insecure and her heart was racing against her stratum. She needed an escape from this unfolding chaos searing deep into her bones. It was conductive to the constant twist of her churning stomach, but it also was a warning. Red flags were going up and there was no preparation of exiting the situation. She was invisibly shackled to the chair, and looking down at her coffee. Just one glance at him would make her became his captive, unsettled, hungry and timid.

"I have some questions to ask you...Call me a little curious, but I did save your life." she said, lifting her hazy seawater colored eyes, and lips slacked into a firm expression, she stared directly at him, peering into his grayish blue eyes hidden behind steams of brown hair. He looked unnerved. She lowered her head slightly, swallowing down a massive lump to the back of her throat. "You don't have to answer every one of them. I need to you if I can trust you, James."

He didn't answer her at first. His luminous and very intense eyes were fixated on the glass displays of various, decadent trays of desserts. He was slowly coming out of the haze as her words nudged against his ears. He bit on his lip, trying to configure pieces together.

He lowered his chin to his chest, his gaze became vacant and lips neutral. Felicity noticed a crease etched near his left brow as the disheveled strands brushed off his paled cheeks. He was frozen in the still whilst of memory that flowed through his brain like an unruly current of hazardous water. It was unbearable to think, gathering images of the days, only fragments of jaded pieces resurfaced from the lost sense of emotion surging and cascading in his system. He offered little resistance to her question.

"Trust" he gurgled, His jaw twitched, and his breath became labored pants that burned against his throat, although he was trying to make his vocal cords rebel against the programming, he was laden. "Trust, no...» His gravel voice was icy spare against her rigid spine. A little cough pierced from his stiff lips. She'd nodded, and brought her hand to his left shoulder, feeling the thickness of metal against her fingers, and she didn't tremble.

"James," she said, in a gentle tone. She was unequipped to sooth an emotionally unstable man. "I'm not very good with social relations. I wasn't the most popular in school." She dropped her eyes to the floor, and sighed. "I communicate well with computer programs. Just not people." She felt her guarded exterior faltering when she gazed at his torment and the awareness and the conflict spreading over his unshaven face. "You remind me of a friend of mine, he was infected with a new breed of mind alerting toxin. We thought he was fine, but he kept the nightmares hidden until my boss found a way to flush everything out."

He stared blankly at her, wordlessly.

Felicity bit her lip as she stared at the glimmer of silver under his jacket. The limb was inorganic alloy, an unbreakable element against water and frigid temperature. She had recalled doing research on bionics at the university, before she entered the computer -data hacking cult with her ex-boyfriend. James furrowed his eyebrows, wincing and dreading that she would show fear towards his metal arm. Instead she applied pressure over the plate just resting human touch over an extraordinary contorting mass of chrome. He closed his eyes for a second attempting to allow tears to leak from his eyes, but his emotions weren't translating the thought of response.

"You're not afraid of me..." he whispered, struggling to speak. "My arm doesn't bother you?" He looked deeply into her bright and focused eyes.

Felicity shook her nod, sweetly and patted his shoulder. "James, I think your arm is very cool. Not too many guys have your body-" she nearly choked, blushing. "I mean your appearance. Sorry if that came out wrong..."

He blinked, and snapped his eyes to his mug off black coffee. "It is different to have someone to talk you."

"Different in a good way?"

"Yes," he said.

An arctic chill swept through her body. His voice was haunting and yet very young. He was still frightened, and trying to break free from the lapse of power struggle ravaging through his damaged, and disjointed mind, and he wasn't comfortable being around people.

"You are very nice," his voice was an impasse of clogged words. "You're not like the rest of them, Felicity. You're real."

"Well, I sure hope so," she smirked, faintly, still keeping her eyes latched on him. "I'm glad we're talking, James. It's good to hear your voice."

He looked disquieted, "I haven't talked to anyone in years." he slurred, his voice thick, low and distressed. The fragrance wafting off her body made him dizzy. He sounded incoherent. His body started to shake. His eyes drifted away from her beautiful face. "Sometimes I forget how to talk..." He stared intently at a couple holding hands while enjoying a cheesecake. The woman had an engagement ring. A big diamond.

Felicity spared a glance at the couple, and then lifted his metal hand, placing it on the table. She mirrored loving gestured, with an affectionate encompass of her dainty fingers rubbing over the metal knuckles.

She knew it was insane and awkward, but it also felt right to give him back humanity.

A moment of stillness hung between them as the last thread of tension snapped and he slid his fingers in between hers, interlocking metal against flesh. And he was suddenly crying, his stark blue eyes glistening as flickers of the candle danced in his pupils.

His entire torso hitched as he pressed his lips into a tight line, sealing his breath. And he was trembling and eyes closed.

"James," she leaned in closer, stroking the sharp bristles of his stubble with her another hand. "Do you want to get out here? You're uncomfortable, aren't you?"

He nodded, and tightened his grip over her hand, holding it. He replied. "Felicity," He said her name so gentle, it sounded like a breath. He felt the dread churning in his veins. "You're not safe with me. I'm a target now. If they find you with me...They will hurt you."

"You mean like put a gun to my head? Threaten my life with ridiculous demands?" she questioned, and pressed her index finger into the cleft of his chin. "I deal with that pretty much every day of the week, James. I'm not some damsel to keep barred in an apartment or a cellar. I can put up a fight if it becomes necessary."

He arched an eyebrow, intrigued. "When you asked if you could trust me..." She lightly smiled. He felt the strain against his throat. "My answer is yes, Felicity." He tentatively cupped her jaw with his flesh hand. "I can be very dangerous when I want to be..."

She smiled, and run her thumb over his bottom lip, "So can I," she warned, and then slid her chair away from the table. "You had a coffee, and now we move on to step two-"

"Step two?" he asked, uneasy.

"Yes, few showers and then shopping. You are in dire need of clothes."

James dropped his head, and looked down at his frayed jeans and muddy boots. "I don't have much money. I stole these from the first man I saw. I didn't mean to do, but it was necessary."

"In this city, the man is probably dead or close to it. So, I wouldn't be worrying about repayment." Felicity watched him smirk, as he stood upright and stuffed his metal hand in his pocket, unsure. "Don't worry about the money. I'll just charge it to my boss's account. He is a compassionate, okay well, somewhat of a compassionate billionaire."

"I guess my life is now in your hands?" he managed lowly, not taking his piercing and feral blue eyes off her. It was almost like he was protecting her.

Felicity smiled to herself, and brushed the long strands out of his eyes. "You need to worry; I always pack an extra suitcase of high heels, James."

With a smirk that reached his bright blue eyes, James couldn't help, but stare into her trusting eyes, he didn't mind the glasses. His full lips curved upwards, revealing the indents of his set jaw, and his hand lowered and caressed her arm, as he whispered, "Lead the way,"

For once, Felicity Smoak -_Miss Intelligent_ was speechless. All she could do was smile stupidly and big, and take his metal hand into hers. She was his guide through the darkness and light.

James knew that he would've been lost without her.

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><p>AN : A huge thank to everyone who reviewed and followed this story. You guys are seriously the best. I am going to try to update this story every week for you. Also, do you want to see Oliver and the rest of the characters included with the plot? Until next time, thank you and enjoy.


	3. Chapter 3

**{3}**

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><p>The stench of death permeated the crisp night air, thick and grim against the darkness of looming clusters of inhabited buildings in the throes of heavy traffic.<p>

Everything was chaos that grew in violent harrowed screams, bullets fired, that a bone-chilling shriek was barely a sound to be heard, as gloved hands obstructed the air supply of the latest victim of merciless power.

Disadvantage was a form of weakness in the feral eye gleaming behind leather mask-black and orange with one slit exposing humanity behind the ruthless semblance of a trained killer. He didn't spare a glance as the blood dripping from the bullet gun wound.

He didn't spare guilt of stealing another life, and painted his hands red as he pressed his fingers over the tender areas of the man's torso. He'd never allowed his targets to breathe easy, his cold methods would invasive and brutal-leaving no traces of his existence behind for forensics teams to uncover from the crime scene.

So, he stood on the ledge of a roof top, his gauntlet arm leveled up with gloved fingers clasped over a man's throat-Martian Jacobson, an assistant district attorney who liked to gamble with the mob sharks. There was blood in the water, and feeding time was a course of desperate nature when certain secrets were unveiled without consent. He was a target, a loose pawn that had to become shattered and swept away.

In front of him was the murderous and efficient assassin, a worthy suitor for the arising empire of Ra's al ghul: Deathstroke-Slade Wilson. He was a gun for hire who instability to alliance. He killed for no honor, just blood. His armor carried the stains of maroon from his latest missions; some believed he even bathed in blood. He had Jacobson in his firm grasp.

Jacobson dangled in the air, his skin paled and body protested to scream as intermingling cracks of bone and heart pounding clogged his ears as his pulse grew weaker each moment the hand squeezed against his windpipe. For all he knew, death was impending and the masked assassin was his grim reaper.

He felt the decrease of circulation gripped his neck; he was trying to ignore the thralls of pain that registered in his side.

Jacobson had been shot with untraceable bullet, exploding through muscle and tissue of his upper thigh, close to his groin. His thin and chiseled face was mess of cuts and purple tinged bruises, his lips swollen from a lethal assault that happened quick in the parking garage below his feet; exhaling out meager pants of breath, a encroaching sound made him lift his glassy eyes to the shadows, his bones jostled and heart pounded to an erratic beat.

He couldn't avoid the merciless stare harboring him to enter the voids of darkness; he was entrapped by an icy and hardened eye concealed behind a frightening mask. Breaking eye contact was a serious risk; he was already marked dead in the daunting gaze of the lethal assassin. He saw his life fade in the gleam of the steel weapon-an alloy, razor edged sword was hand in Deathstroke's fingers. Sharpened and glossed with his blood. Feeling his pulse elevate, he jerked violently, reaching a hand out for his automatic, but the clocked phantom, loomed closer, intimating him as the human eye was suddenly covered by red optic lens. The attacker was fast, and systematic, his boot crushed over his wrist, scattering the bones with pressure weight.

'Here's a few men that want your head, Mr. Jacobson," an electronic, nonhuman voice broke the silence.

It pierced out of the metal grate of the mask covering the lower half of the mask. Jacobson yelped when his wounded leg brutally impacted over the cement. He was roughly yanked and thrown downwards, his skull hit the bottom of the ledge, and blood dripped from his neck. It felt like the back of his head had been ripped out, heated fluid leaked out of the gnash, and his eyelids started to flutter and glazed irises turned into pale white. Deathstroke stood on the top, watching his worm around in the twists of pain flowing throughout his body. Its hands at its sides, and the deep voice bellowed with no emotion, just a coldness that sent shivers down its victims' spine. "You have lived a diseased lifestyle, wasting your father's money and ruining good lives because of your greed. You disgust me. You're ways of justice are just a cover up to hide your true nature of process. That is weakness I intend not to share with you."

Choking on his blood, the young distinct attorney spat, indignantly, "Just who the Hell do you think you are, evil freak?"

Deathstroke jumped from his perch as his sword pointed downward, slicing the through the air, and tearing off a piece of Jacobson's, a glove hand grabbed him by the scuff his neck and hauled him up the wall, bashing his head into grimy brick. His face was inches from colliding with the mask, he whimpered as the gloved fingers coiled over his neck, feeling the pulse within his clutch.

"I am the necessary of evil...I am equalizer of justice and order."

Jacobson bloodshot eyes widen, pure horror consumed his battered face, let he could do was let out a ragged plea for mercy. Soon, his cries died out when the sword jabbed into his chest, piercing deep within the layers of his heart and twisted until his eyes rolled back from their sockets.

Gazing intently at his victim flopping like a fish, Deathstroke pulled the sword out of the compromised area, and then pierced the blade into abdomen, holding and pressing it firmly until he listened to a strangled breath ghost out of Jacobson's lips.

Crouching down, he carefully removed the other man's wallet, and took out a photo of a beautiful young woman holding a curly haired little girl who looked to be around the age of four in her secured arms.

Deathstroke stared at the photo for several long minutes, fierce and resentful. He ripped the photo in half, allowing the updraft to carry the pieces and watching them disappear into the shadows, and he knew they needed to be disposed of before any more threads would unravel.

He straightened to his full, intimating height and dragged the body to the edge, and kicked the corpse over, watching it drop and impact the hood of a waiting taxi cab. He didn't care about the damage. He had another mission to complete before the night ended.

No one in the Jacobson house was going to sleep soundly tonight.

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><p><em>She listened intently at the EKG machines, her teary eyes scanned over the monitor screens as she waited for a sign of a pulse. Her clammy hands delicately caressed over the blood drenched costume -flawless ebony leather that blended in the shadows. Now, it was a shroud that covered the cold ashen skin of her friend.<em>

_Her fingers brushed across the cool metal of the table and reached the scraped knuckles. It wasn't supposed to happen to her. Friends were never victims of death in her eyes; but this cracked out her heart and she bled out her emotions. Her soul shrinking as vague glimpses of those black arrows-projectiles smeared with blood of her friend haunted her every moment she dared herself to glance at the lifeless face it was like almost looking at stone. Cold and unfeeling to human touch. It was a constant nightmare that grew stronger and beyond her control, disjointed images of scattered pieces of truth and deception invaded her mind. She couldn't gather the detail or search for the solid proof that it was the effects of a fear toxin laced in her veins._

_She wanted to wake up from the delusion and watch Sara smile with her honey blonde hair gleaming in the dim light. Her youthful face beaming with hope; not wearing the domino mask veiling over her light azure eyes. The semblance of the Black Canary was just her freedom from the norm-she deserved a better life without the masks and leather. Without death trialing her every move. It was stolen from her. Now, she would kiss Oliver again or hold that stuff animal shark with her sister shielding her._

_Wiping her tears, Felicity finished the preparations for the funeral. Sara was going to be buried with a nameless grave. Her existence would become a ghost of redemption to those who loved her. Carefully, Felicity cleaned the wounds, banging the holes with cotton, and washing off the lingering stains of blood. It didn't seem real to grasp, she hoped Sara would just wake up like Sleeping Beauty. But she didn't-Sara was gone for forever. And only photos on her mobile phone kept her memory alive._

_"You taught me never to become afraid of risk," she whispered, placing her shaking hand over Sara's frozen cheek. "Why did you take that risk?" She questioned, feeling a jolt of dull pain in her heart." You should have never been alone, you should have followed Oliver back here where it's home to us. It would give saved you-"_

_In a frenzy of tears, she pulled off the stickers attached to the wires, and turned off the machine. "There is always another way to save someone..." She paused in her words, and placed her hand over Sara's holding it for a few more seconds. She didn't want to let go, the searing coldness entered inside her bones; and then she stepped away from the table._

_"Please," she begged in a broken voice. "Please come back to us..."_

_You're not dead. You're alive, and this is a time. She thought. And was the tears were beginning to blur her vision, she reached for arrow on the table and threw it against the wall as phantoms of rage consumed in her veins._

For a moment, she pounded her fist into a pillow, furiously, making the feathers tumble into the pillowcase flippantly. She growled at the top of her lungs and felt her knuckles burn with each violent smack she knew into her small punching bag. She was frustrated with herself. Her golden strands of hair fell into her glistening blue eyes as she puffed out labored breaths and clenched her redden clench into an ugly expression of hate. She'd needed to unleash the pain; it was making become sick with morbid illusions of the past.

Felicity pulled back quickly from the cluster of pounded in pillows of her suite's bed; her knees sunk into the folds of covers, lifted her head up abruptly and stared at the streaks of light across the ceiling. Blood rushed to her skull, and dizzily with an instinctive response she turned her gaze to the bathroom door. It was left ajar and the sound of running water lulled her to chance a glare at the cloud steam erupting underneath as a desperate impulse to advance closer made her blood pound faster in her veins.

"I seriously hope he didn't hear all that," she breathed, gaining back her calm and collective poise. She fiddled with her pony tail, and took a deep, cleansing breath and released. Silence resumed in her throat as she listened to the gushing noise of water beating against the metal plates of his arm. It had a comforting, and yet enticing ting to it. "Focus," she chided, pressing her lips into a line, and tapping her fingers over the mattress. "The guy is not someone to trust...Uh... I can't believe I allow myself to get close and invite him in my personal space. I guess that's my weakness...I always seem to go before the dark and brooding guys with muscles."

She lightly smirked as she added under her breath, "Maybe I should put that on my dating profile. If I ever decide to make one up..." The nagging disruption in her thoughts ended the moment she watched the door open, and he stepped into her view. His long brown hair was drenched and cascading half way over his thick shoulders. His bare chest, glistening with droplets of excess water, and his chiseled torso rippled with tensed, compacted muscles -the only thing that prevented her glued eyes from moving down was black jeans fastened snug under his slender hips.

James cautiously leaned against the door frame, and lifted his metal arm, and she watched his pectorals coil as the plates of alloy twisted and swerve as he reached for a black t-shirt hanging over the door. "I was going to take another one of these...showers, but for some reason the water turned into ice." He slid his hair off his forehead, and trained his pale blue eyes on her. "I heard screaming...Did some access this room and harm you, Felicity?"

"Nothing happened while you were enjoying your four showers, James." she answered, curving her full lips into a gentle smile. "The reason why the water was cold...Well, I guess the pipes in this hotel weren't construction for a guy who likes to shower more than the average guy in a day."

"I didn't mean to use all the water..." He looked distant, and stepped away from the bathroom. "Did I cause any harm?" he drawled in a raspy voice. His damp hair obscured his face, giving him a menacing appearance as he leveled his blue eyes at her waiting to receive her response.

"No," she answered quickly, fidgeting the phone in front of her...unable to focus on him for that fraction of second when she felt her heart seize up in her chest. "Give it a few hours and I'm sure the hot water will return back to normal."

James nodded, and pulled the shirt of his muscle, wincing as his right arm cracked. He gritted his teeth, and nearly fumbled against the wall. "Why does this hurt so much?" he growled, deep and ragged. "It never used to hurt like this...»

"Well, you do have a fractured arm. Bones do need time to heal." she replied with a light brush of concern echoing in the silence. The air thickened with distress radiating from his body. She didn't even have to look to feel how broken he felt. A shuffle of movement and he glared back at her. His intense, unnervingly blue eyes were daggers piercing through the layers of her soul. She wondered if he was going to attack her, that feral look steered her to believe in the sense of impending dread. The vague scent of body wash that the suite provided wafted from him, strong and fresh masculine scent that could make away women scream out their desires.

James narrowed his eyes at the floor, "I'll heal fast..." he said, his voice low and rough. He didn't look up.

She shook her head, disproving his words. "No one can heal in a day...I wish it was that simple. Maybe lives would be saved."

He was aware of her hidden pain. "You're hurting?"

She shrugged. "I have no broken bones...Just a lot of pain inside of me." She gestured her hand at the pillows with indents of her anger. "Someone was killed who was close to me...Family. I still can't face the truth that she is gone."

"A friend?"

She nodded, quietly. "One of the best a girl like me could have back home."

He moved closer to bed. His eyes glittered in the lamp light. "I'm not the only one who carries a lot of pain."

"Guilty," she whispered, raising her hand. "I guess that's another thing we have in common." she gave him a sweet, trusting smile. "We need to make a list."

"You don't..." he stuttered, his voice struggling against his throat. His voice was cut with silence.

She stared into his haunted and tortured gaze of blue, watching the vast succession of tense lines form over his skin. James looked like he wanted freedom, like he wanted a chance to redeem himself from the mistakes he made, and yet his words remained lodged in his raw throat, not coming out, he just stood there, staring at her darkly, silent, protective, almost sad.

"Look you don't have to explain..." she said, reaching for the basket of fruit and grabbed an orange. She spun it with her fingers. James furrowed his eyes, and once again trained his eyes at the door. He was urging to run. He knew she wasn't safe.

He swallowed. His eyes creased as he looked at her. She was beautiful. Her long hair shimmered like gold silk in the caress of warmth light, and her blue eyes sparked with acceptance. He didn't deserve her company. "I need to go, Felicity. Its better this way...I can't risk your life, not when you have done so much for me."

She rolled the orange under her chin, "Did I tell you that I'm one of the most dangerous women you're ever going to meet?"

He lifted an eyebrow.

"You're not the only one who's get people after them. I'm dangerous because I know how to disable any secret wired through a database." She pointed to the door, giving him the opened choice. "Now, you can go back into that rat infested alley, and let a rodent gnaw off your other arm...Or you can stay here with me and rebuild a new identity that keeps you underground."

He sighed. "You don't mind if I say with you...Sleep in the same room with you?"

Felicity whipped the orange at him, and caught it in midair, fast and quick like a back catcher. "Start peeling with that cool knife of yours and we'll talk about your sleeping arrangements."

He twisted his full lips into a warm smirk, and then removed his combat knife from his pocket. His cool blue eyes never left her, starting to cut into jagged blade the fruit's rime.

"I am so screwed." she whispered, looking at his straggly hair swatch over the sharp clenched of his broad, scruffy jaw.

"Yup, this is the story of my life...Unveiling secrets and befriending men with weapons and long hair." Felicity smirked, thoughtfully, and she never removed her stare as James handed her slices of the orange with his metal hand. She accepted the fruit and ignored the vibrating phone on the bed. "It's a good life..."

* * *

><p>Meanwhile back in Starling City, Oliver was on the edge of emotion, pacing in front of the computer desk and analyzing the situation without her. He narrowed his steely, grayish-blue eyes on the mobile in his hand, scanning over the blank inbox with response messages from her, trying to remain calm. The send text blotted until he could refocus. He felt selfish for allowing Felicity to the mission on her own, especially now that Digg gave him harrowing information on Deathstoke's location in D.C. He needed to suit up and go stop Wilson.<p>

"She's still not answering your calls?" Digg's voice carried through the darkness. Oliver whipped his head around, and stared mist eyed at his friend. His chest was constricting like a vice grip against his thumping heart, and he breathed through his nostrils, trying to train the clarity of his vision on the other man leaned up against the wall. "You know that she is capable of handling any situation, Oliver."

Oliver grabbed the length of his black shirt, squeezing it in his tight clutch. "I know," he said through gritted teeth. He swiftly moved way to the stairs, and brushed his dark jeans against the rough cement wall; lifting his broad arm, and then pressed his palm against the heating pipe. "I worked very hard where I am Digg and I made a few mistakes in the past. I never once consider regretting the choice of having Felicity as my eyes whenever I put on the hood." He narrowed his eyes, clenching his jaw, and then released a steady exhale. "Without her watching my back...There would be no Arrow. This city needs more blondes like her."

Digg smiled, lightly. "Not just for fetching you coffee, Oliver?"

Oliver opened his mouth. And then closed it. "I lost Sara..." he swallowed after a long, painful silence. He stiffened his lips, and lowered his eyes, blotting memories of her cold and dead on the table. "I lost her because I decided to look the other way...I didn't have to will to stay with her that night and I failed to protect her." He grimaced deeply, and then his thoughts grew steadily darker, and recalled his original reason for abandoning her that night. He didn't trust her enough.

"I didn't realize until I looked down at her grave that her death was my fault." His voice grew silent, and eyes clamped shut."I will haunt me like everything else, but I can't allow Felicity to be unprotected not when Slade is close to her."

Digg folded his arms over his chest, "Let me guess, you're going after her?" he asked, already knowing answer.

"Felicity is a part of this family-My family." Oliver echoed back, he moved in fervent strides to the glass armory case, and removed his dark green, leather hooded garment and cross bow. "You never leave family behind." he said in a firm growl, and then unbuttoned his shirt.

* * *

><p>Curled under the safe heap of lavender scented covers, Felicity stared blankly at James, watching his bare chest rise and fall in the swatch of blankets she threw over him when he refused to sleep. She listened to softness of breath ghosted from his elegantly shaped lips. He looked indescribably peaceful and his face was contrast of light and shadow. She reached her hand down, carefully dragging her fingers gently over the chrome plates so that she could feel the sleek coldness against her skin. She kept her hand latched on his shoulder, staring.<p>

"Sweet dreams, James."

He waited until she drifted to sleep, and then he opened his stormy blue eyes, hair was draped over his forehead, touching the tensed corners of his lip. He didn't know how to react to human touch. He had been immune to rot in undisturbed solitude where fragment memories of his stolen life haunted him. He was a master assassin, trained and brutalized to obey and accomplish objectives. There was no way to reconcile his pain, it was a part of him and it consumed every fiber in his scarred heart.

The soothing motions of her fingers rubbing heat over his skin cultivated new stirrings as he lifted his gaze, moonlight reflected in his pupils and he stared and watched her breathe. She wasn't afraid of his presence and he was growing agitated and confused. It was strange for him to be close to a woman, and not look her like a target of terminate, but as something more that he wasn't sure enough to say in those moments as he locked his stark blue eyes on her face, and then roved them back to the door.

_Why did she save me? _The voice of the Winter Soldier asked in his head. He clenched his teeth and slid his hand underneath the bed, grabbing his knife as he was beginning to suspect danger. It was a sense in the room, but the presence was unfamiliar in the air, but it did not avail. He knew it was a necessary function to become prepared for attack; he twirled his knife, steel against the early light. The knife was an instrument of death, but now he would use it to protect a life. Her life.

He outstretched his right arm, and grasped her laden limb as if she had become his life line with his flesh hand, and rubbed his thumb over the strong veins. He took her pulse, and he felt his own heart beating as his blue eyes filled with fresh tears, and he dropped the knife as water slipped over the chiseled indents of his face.

"Good night, Felicity," he whispered in monotone. He was finally safe to breathe.

* * *

><p>AN: A big thank you to everyone who read and reviewed this story. I think this has to be one of my favorites to write because of all the different characters and their emotions. Thank you and enjoy. The next update will be posted next Sunday.


	4. Chapter 4

**{4}**

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><p>Felicity was being smothered in the thick entanglement of sheets, drowning constricting cave of duvets, doused in spongy expiration. Her brow dotted with feverish beads of sweat like droplets of rain lingering on a window pane. One dot glided down her soft temple and rolled onto her tensed cheek before falling back into the disarray of matted golden stands fanned across the pillowcase.<p>

Her narrow chest elevated against the barrier of the blankets, and her lips twitched as her polished fingernails crawled at the sheets unleashing rapid gasps of sharp breaths. She was suffocating. Her throat clogged with fluid, and flickering eyes followed the jerks of convulsion. Her lithe body had become drenched with t sickening and unsavory stench of fear and long hair absorbed the moisture of tears and distress.

She failed her overpowered weighted arms, thrashing violently, being tortured with anguishing images invading her mind as red flashed under her sealed eyelids. Her whole body became scorched with as panic bled out of her, muscled tensed and juddered with tremors erupting in her veins. She was trapped in crimson abyss of her subconscious. Her energy had been robbed and ears dulled as silence cloaked over her contorting body, and then snap. An invasive pain shot through the marrow of her bones as the world shattered into black jaded pieces. Tiny arrowheads smeared with blood gleamed in the caress of milky light, reflecting over the rooftop, and over Sara's lifeless body.

"Sara," she whimpered in a hitch pant of breath. Her lips fastened into a quivering frown as she choked out her friend's name before entering a dark and inescapable place. She was falling off the rooftop, arms reaching over leverage to prevent her skull from smashing against the cement. Heart beat thumping faster at uncontrolled rate, and eyes blurred with lucid tears. "Sara!"

_Falling...Screaming as loud as possible...Stretching out her arm against the wall...Reaching for the fire escape. Her fingers bleeding with fresh coat of blood seeping from her marred veins...Looking up at a man crouching down on the ledge with a crossbow gripping in his hands. No mask covering his face, just a sadistic and merciless chuckle pierces from his covered mask...His hand lifts and the arrows fly and compromise her flesh, the jagged shards slice though paling skin and she hits the bottom. Her broke jostle and break at impact._

_She manages of roll her eyes to Sara's body atop of the vehicle...Blood pours out and forms a large puddle beneath her. She screams a high pitch of volume, writhing her body, but it becomes too late...Red consumes her and she drowns._

"No!"

Automatically, James snapped his eyes open to the cries of her distress; he reeled his chiseled torso off the floor. He blinked, his pale blue irises glazed with exhaustion, he looked around and found himself cloaked by a cascade of blankets, feeling the vibrations of Felicity kicking and screaming as if she was imprisoned in a coffin of ice.

Systematically, he looked to his left and found her in a heap of tangled blankets jerking wildly, revealing to him that she on a verge of torturous distress. Her eyelids were clamped shut, tears streaked over her colorless face, and her intakes of breath were increasing erratically with every jerk of movement.

"Felicity," he whispered, his voice cracked. He straightened to his full height of five foot eleven, and bent down to her side. "What's wrong?" he asked timidly, alarmed, reaching forward, groveling and reaching for her right arm. "Felicity," he called again, seizing her wrist with her metal hand, his coiled fingers tensed against her speeding pulse. Her other arm flew back and inadvertently smacked the lamp off the nightstand as porcelain hit the floor in a loud crash. His pupils dilated as the thralls of pain reentered his system. "Wake up," he urged, moving the skin over her hand with his chromed digits. She was too far gone in a nightmarish delirium.

James swallowed, blinking down at her angelic face and he growled, staring at her wounded hand. The shards of the lamp marked the spaces of her knuckles as lines of blood trickled down her arm. He spent a moment struck in an impasse of indecision before, a strangled cry left her trembling lips.

Staring at the fragments of the lamp lodged in her skin, he reacted with impulse, no hesitation just pure instinct. He cautiously took her flopping arm, and placed it flat on the pillow, bright maroon seeped into the cotton, but he didn't care. "Okay," he rasped his baritone deep with an ache of dread. The knife he removed from his pocket hovered over her shaking hand. "This might sting for a few seconds, but I won't hurt you, Felicity." he whispered in a low tempo. Then he reached for her arm and gave her a reassuring caress with his fingers.

Carefully, James scraped the blade cover her knuckles, delicately punctured the skin, and pushed the shards out of the blemished tissue. He flicked the piece to the floor.

A black spider crawled over the case, almost inches from her hand. He stared at the eight-legged shape for a moment before clenching his teeth in to an aggressive grimace. His gums burned with the pressure of ivory rows gritting against the other, and lines of tension etched around his full lips and his face scrunched into a viscous glower. His hand curled into a fist, and his head inclined as long straggly tresses of his hair draped over his cheeks, obscuring his eyes as darkness turned the color of his irises into a pale gray, widening with pupils enlarged. "I'll kill you!" he snarled, ragged breath sucked back harshly against his throat, and knife jabbed into the spider, split the tiny body into half.

Hearing the wolfish snarl jarring through her body, Felicity awoke in a heaving gasp, breathing hard and looking around the room in muzzily confusion as she felt pressure of his weight against her legs. She barely flinched as the gleam of the wielding knife became entrapped in her gaze, he was inches from her face, hot breath ghosting over her neck, and long brown hair limp over the sharp clenched of his jaw. She bit down on her lip in response, completely frozen under his evoking stare of glacial blue. He had an untamed look in his feverish eyes as he panted out heavy gulps of air, and then recognition dawned in his eyes as he calmed.

Quickly, he pulled the knife out of the pillow and dropped it to the floor. He recoiled backwards in that instant of realization, his metal hand loosed with subtle mechanical noises against the caved in sheets. Felicity kept her eyes trained on his quivering lips. His face paled with an abashed expression. "I didn't mean to do this..." He whispered, his voice spastic as his tongue curled against the roof of his mouth. "I responded to your screaming...There was a spider...It was instinct...I had no intention of scaring you, Felicity."

Daunted by his sudden assault on the bed, Felicity swallowed down the building lump in her throat, and pointed at the ripped opened pillow, features scattered on the blanket. "You put a knife in my pillow-actually it's the hotel's property, but that is beside the point."

James narrowed his eyes slowly down, averting from her stare, his eyebrows creased, and his full arched lips parted ever so slightly, barely showing the row of ivory under his plump flesh. He exhaled deeply; easing the tension as it coursed through his veins, and then he flicked his light blue irises up, meeting her steady gaze, and allowed her to penetrate beyond his haunted stare.

"I didn't mean to do this..." he spoke, his words clogged against the walls of his throat, and his dark hair fell in disarray against his chiseled and slightly paled features. "I can't control myself...You're in danger with me being so close to you." he shook his head silently, and rested his chin over his kneecap. "I don't want to hurt you, Felicity."

She couldn't manage a word, her lips parted, and she let a faint sigh, but couldn't say anything, her vocal cords felt seared with exhaustion from screaming, she was unable to spit out a few words.

James lifted his head, his jaw relaxed along with his breaths; he seemed ashamed for using the knife. She looked and saw the condemnation glittering in his blue eyes.

"It wasn't your fault," she said quietly, calmly. Her hand slid over the heap of blankets and brushed atop of his metal knuckles. "Calm down, and stop putting the blame on yourself, James. I'm used to having knifes and bullets flying at me." She upturned the corners of her lips into a gentle and assuring smile and sent it his way. "I never had a guy kill a spider for me with a knife." She paused for a mid-second, and gazed at the stain of spider guts on the pillow. "Now, that's pretty cool." she said hoarsely and wretched voice, noticing her injured hand. "I guess I was dangerous as well..."

He muttered something in Russian, something like, "очень," as he lifted her hand close enough for the heat of his lips make contact with her skin.

She smiled, dimples engraved in her cheeks, and blue eyes mirrored with the same spark she found in his eyes. She tucked her loose blond ringlet behind her ear, almost feeling giddy like a fourth grade meeting her crush for the first time. She had taken Russian at the university, with no intention of using it as a method of enticement, but this was different. "Поцелуй его. Я не буду рассказывать."

James immediately froze at the measure of her words, and his luminous blue eyes narrowed, hesitantly he brought her arm above his knee, and she eyes sparkled with no doubt. He looked at her, tears filmed over his haunted eyes, ghosted over by the evocation devils of his tortured past. He wanted to feel human touch, the softness of a woman's lips against his own; he craved for passion as enthralling hunger of intimate contact purged his carnal urges.

Finally, he looked at her beaming face, and when their blue eyes locked, he dropped wet heat over the top of her hand, pressing a hard, and longingly kisses against the softness of her clammy skin.

She didn't pull her hand away; it never even crossed her mind.

* * *

><p>Across the city, things weren't so peaceful.<p>

"You'll pay for this intrusion," a voice hissed out behind the shadows of the rusting crate. A black tipped arrow sliced through the air, barely skimming his shoulder. Breathing heavily, the man fumbled against the metal container, his hand curled over the arrow lodged in his right bicep. Seething out his agony, he scrunched his thinned structured face up in discomforted, feeling the serrated edges cut through tissue of his muscle. "You'll pay with your life." he snarled against clenched teeth, desperately trying to pull the arrow out of his arm. Calculating his steps, he used his other hand and removed his automatic from the hostler attached to his belt. "Your methods of interrogation do not work on the League of Assassins. We are hollow when it comes to feeling pain."

Another projectile cut through the shadows.

"You don't know the measure of pain," A hooded figure growled, his voice electronic and menacing. His seawater colored eyes narrowed at his primary target, cross bow seized against his leather gloved fingers as he spoke once more. "I didn't come here to hear you squeal...I came for one purpose only. I want to know how Slade Wilson escaped from the island...Nyssa is clever when infiltrating secured locations, but she doesn't know all my secrets." He aligned the arrow with the man below his position, ready to launcher without a second's waste of hesitation. "Tell me who sent Deathstroke back on American soil or you won't be walking out of here."

Snickering at the biting threat in Arrow's raspy voice, the man clearly stepped into the vigilante's range, "You think that you can beat us, with your pathetic armory of hunting toys, Queen." He opened his mouth, rolling his tongue against his back teeth, sliding it over one tooth with a capsule of cyanide laced in it. "You're just a pawn for justice...You do not hold the true ideals of balancing reformation in diseased cities. Deathstroke is pawn that we play on our side of the game...Win it is over there will be victors just blood stains on the sidewalks of your city."

Under the mask, Oliver did something he hasn't done in eight years, he hesitated. "Why is Deathstroke in Washington?" he inquired, feeling harrowing knots of dread reach the surface of his veins. The man in his sharpened view twisted his lips into a cold smirk, and bit down into the capsule, swallowing the position as it started to burn his insides.

"Every man has a weakness...I think we just want to put an arrow into your heart." he choked out his last words, and gasped for breath.

Deciphering the hidden context of the other man's words, Oliver lowered his crossbow, his darkened eyes changeless, and he stared at the operative stumbling backwards as the cyanide ate into the flesh of his face.

"Felicity?"

* * *

><p>Russian translate<p>

очень-very

Поцелуй его. Я не буду рассказывать.-Kiss it. I won't tell.

**A/N : A big thank to everyone who reviewed and read this story. **


	5. Chapter 5

**{5}**

* * *

><p>Madness had awakened when the siege of humanity was placed on the Libra of order and chaos. First, there became a division of light and darkness when the sword cut into the gray areas of mortal error. Second, the foundations of empires crumbled and fell in the sea of blood, and cleansing of reformation consumed cities by fire. It became the era of domination, fear and death. Order was birthed when the sentinels of justice were stabbed in the heart by the very people they had fought to protect. During the configuration of equal balance, a new power was forged when a boy took the blade and sliced his anger into the heart of the man who tried to steal his family away from him. The boy had lost his innocence and humanity from the moment he had watched the light in the pupils fade to black. He conquered fear by seizing control over death by becoming a demon.<p>

A dozen lifetimes the Demon's Head extinguish souls, he killed thousands of men and stained his hands into the cleansing pools of compromised weakness. Now, he was entering another void of wicked ideals for restoring true justice into the world by ridding the old ways through extinction. He created many alliances over the decades of his thriving reign. HYDRA was the first to catch a foreboding glimpse of the future. He made a blood pact with the leader, Red Skull, keeping ghosts in the shadows and aiding the insane minds with knowledge of mystic arts and methods of destroying their enemies with chemical warfare, numerous airborne plagues, assassinations of political heads and leveling cities into ash. It was a lethal partnership, but necessary to keep succession alive.

The chamber was dimly lit with bronze pillars ablaze; it was full of shadow and tension held by flickers of amber against stone wall surrounding the center floor. The chamber was infected with the stench of fresh blood which wafted off five lifeless bodies of men in black garment, failures to the rite of the League of Assassins. Standing on the edge of battle, he remained motionless with displeasure written on his distinguished features. His feral gaze narrowed at the macabre of spilled maroon seeping underneath the fallen victims to his malice.

He wore an ebony cloak and silver tunic covering his broad flesh from the uncleansed air. He stood in the middle of the floor, his ends of his cloak billowed over the punctured torsos of two men, unworthy to carry out his cause and grant his hunger of power indulgence. His sword gleamed in the specks of torchlight as his talon like ring tapped over the sharpened blade. However disturbing the sight had been, his dark eyes were vacant from sentiment and his bearded jaw set into a regal clench.

"For centuries I have witness the struggles that bound humanity into the shadows of failure." The Demon's Head spoke to the impatient figure leading against the stone wall. His deep voice was regal and well-define, and his gloved hand absently swiped over the blade, removing the blood from his victims. He leveled a cold and soulless glare to the guest-Baron Wolfgang Strucker of his mountain stronghold.

Wolfgang Strucker was a man of shortened stature, wearing a dark gray uniform and black collar swathed over his thick neck that set his appearance commanding, strict and disciplined. A receding hairline told his beholder that he was aging, and yet it give him an intimating look, like a lot of German SS commanders the League of Assassins had dealt with in the past while abroad in Poland. His face...Broad jawline, rough features and acute gray eyes. He had aged for the gap of his absence, but his mind was still devious and calculating.

"Do you know what we are inside the hearts of weak men, Baron? We are phantoms that twist the deepest part of their filthy souls until they bleed out the truth." He stepped over the bodies, and encroached near the German commander of HYDRA. "This new age that you desire me to become a part of will rake away all weakness...All human error and tear down the old world system?" he question, not removing his gaze off Strucker. "Is this your dream, Baron?"

"It is a dream that men of the shadows share, my friend." Strucker answered simply, his German accent conveyed in the darkness sculpting over his face and observant and darkened eyes. He cleared his throat, and averted his gaze from the bodies' inches to his boots. "Project Insight was failure. We should have never allowed Alexander Pierce to be in charge of the operation. He didn't do what had been necessary to ensure our plan. He tasted defeat by underestimating the super-soldier." He gruffly digressed at the Demon's Head. "Now instead of eliminating the targets ...We switch the game to your cause, since your ways have always gotten exceptional results, Ra's al Gul."

Ra's felt his hand clench over the handle of his sword. The helicarriers and Zola's algorithm did not conceive our new world dominance. Technology has always been the Achilles heel for warfare. You used weapons to make this world burn, but you control over your programs became corrupted. That is not the future I see, Baron. If you want disorder and chaos then instead of using a bomb to level a city...You use the old methods of taking down an empire. You create fear by mastering death."

"You want blood to flood the streets of cities?" Strucker asked, shifting uncomfortably under Ra's daunting gaze. "How will you not fail?"

Ra's dropped his gaze to his sword, and then said in an emotionless voice, "A bullet goes into the heart fast, it's a painless death...but a sword takes its time to pierce into the heart. It is a slow way to die; you get to see the light of hope fade out when you feel no more pulse."

* * *

><p>"What happened to you, Buck" Steve whispered, his breath scarce as he felt a sharp constriction in his chest—a dull ache of a shattered heart. He stood in the darkness, baseball cap pulled down slightly, shadowing over his deep blue eyes—the hazy golden and blue spectrum's of light from the projector reflected over his leather jacket.<p>

He stared intently at the black and white footage for a moment before his eyes close and head narrows. The voice of the narrator hums in his ears, reminding him of a bond between two boys from Brooklyn that he thought would last forever.

The corners of his smooth, rigid lips altered into a frown; he stared misty eyed at the images of twenty-one year old, tough and earnest Bucky Barnes wearing a scuffed up shirt, dog tags gleaming in the dim afternoon light —he was happy, smiling with his charismatic, warm demeanor determined and tender steel-blue eyes bright as he turned his head and looked at Captain America smiling like an idiot next to him.

A faint smile graced over Steve's lips, he remembered that afternoon, and an American journalist took those images while he and Bucky were discussing plans for their next mission-German occupied compound near the north side of the mountain. They stopped and allowed the older man with thin framed glasses to capture a memory with them.

_"Sgt. Barnes, can you tell us more about Captain Rogers?"_

_"It depends," Bucky replied with a cocky grin, staring directly at Steve. "I can't reveal too much on this punk… Unless you want to see my sorry ass get beaten up by Spangles right here." He chuckled out a hollow breath; he looked at his best friend with a warm expression beaming over his scruffy face. "Steve Rogers is a skinny kid from Brooklyn who always had the fat Delaney boys on the ropes with a few bloody noses—he never gave up a fight. Yeah, um… That's pretty much all I'm saying to the American public." He laughed again, slicking his, groomed, rich brown hair back and off his broad forehead._

_"The both of you grew up together?" the reporter pressed out, holding his wired microphone inches from the two commandos._

_"Steve, as always, been my wing man," Bucky said, placing his hand firmly on Roger's broad shoulder. "He's like a little brother who always got himself into trouble—but he's always there watching your back…" He paused in his words, lowering his blue eyes down. "He's my blood brother and I'm with this blonde haired punk until the end of the line, right pal?"_

_Steve grinned widely, patting his lifelong friend on the shoulder. "Right, Buck."_

Steve mused at that memory in silence, before he lifted his sharp blue eyes—feeling the blood heat in his veins. His mobile phone rang, sighing out a sharp breath; he quickly pulled out the sleek device and touched the screen reading the text message.

_Hey, red and blue Popsicle—enough with the history books for the day. Your Spangle shorts are needed at Stark Tower. Our favorite sunshine boy who brings the thunder is back in town._

_Tony._

Steve sighed, removed his hat, and brushed back his sweaty, short golden locks. He gaped at the message for a few seconds and then quickly sent Tony a small text.

_I'll be there._

_Steve._

He eased the cap over his groomed golden locks; drawing out a shaky exhale and he looked at reel images Bucky smiling on projection the screen. "I don't know what Hydra did to you, Buck." He snarled his lips into a fierce scowl, clenching his knuckles into a hard fist. "I will find you and bring you back. I promise that my friend."

He walked slowly out of the darkened room, stuffed his hands into his jacket's pockets, turned as he forced his vow out in a faint whisper, unaware a pair of sharp, menacing silver-blue eyes watched his presence fade from the shadows of the room. "I'm with you until the end of the line, jerk."

* * *

><p><em>"First off, why would I even go to Washington?" Felicity digressed, leveling her seawater irises filled with ire to Oliver. He stood in front of the computer desk, scarred and broad flesh exposed to the cool air of the basement. His intense blue eyes shadowed with unsettled vengeance. She knew he was teetering closer to the edge-to the point of no return. In her analytic mind, she could easy calculate the conclusive results of his dangerous past to restore justice in Starling City. She felt the tension growing thick between them, it could become disastrous... Sighing, she lowered her eyes, purposely trying to avoid his searing gaze and she desperately tried to convince herself that she could stand her ground with him. "I'm need here..." she gestured a hand to her flat-screen monitor that displayed triangulated GPS coordinates and photos of the criminals linked to the networks of databases and security footage. "There is too much I need to get done in short period of time, in case you forgot our window is limited."<em>

_"This isn't about my personal vendetta with Malcolm and how he corrupted the only person left in my bloodline." Oliver pressed his lips into a taut line, and regarding her with unnerved and firm eyes. "Lot of people of going to die if we don't find the hidden truth the League has been hiding. I can't risk any more bloodshed in my city-it will not stop until humanity becomes extinct on the streets." He inched closer, tentative in his steps, and crouched down to her level, playing his rough hands over her bare shoulders. "Everything we have worked will become compromised and the people we love will be buried in graves next to Sara."_

_Feeling the warmth of his hands penetrate into her skin, and staring at the brush of defeat on his chiseled face seemed to make her emotions respond to the distress welled in his intense gaze, and it made her feel torn inside, but she refused to give herself the luxury to cry and pushed those feelings back down where he couldn't see or hear the shattered pieces of her heart slowly falling into the pit of her stomach. Not after what he's been through. Not after losing his mother and Sara to the darkness of his own failures. Finally her lips broke apart, "You have crossed to many lines...We have lost too much this year, everything is falling apart and no computer program can fix that, Oliver." She watched his darkened eyes drift shut for a moment as he squeezed the tone muscle of her upper shoulders, holding her against the chair. "I can't sleep anymore...Every night I see her face, and then I see you lying on the rooftop with arrows stuck in your gut. Beaten and dead."_

_His eyes narrowed. "You know that won't happen, Felicity." he tried to sound sure of himself, despite the harrowing sense of dread he felt churn in his veins. "You're allowing your grieve to consume your mind. I want you clear your thoughts and focus on this mission."_

_Felicity struggled with words, but really she was having a battle of emotions, and fear. And she felt so displaced for saying it, but she did. "Did you love her, Oliver?" she whispered, rubbing her fingers over his torso scars._

_"A part of me did," he murmured as his soul stirred and eyes lowered to look at the floor blearily. His lips parted as a broke sigh escaped from his throat, "I'm not sure if it was the Arrow or Oliver Queen." He lifted his gaze back up to her, and his eyes glittered in the darkness, still shadowed with remorse. A small tear managed to roll down the curve of his face._

_She brushed her fingertips over his jaw, wiping away the tear as a moment of silence fall between them and made her heart pound faster against her chest. The droning noises of the nightclub echoed through the walls, and then immediately hushed as she focused everything on to him. She saw the darkness beyond his stare, and restrained fear and wondered if he was finally acting human again, not the torturing wraith, but the man under the hood. Her fingers slipped a little over his skin, making her pulse escalate every time. Little flecks of light reflected in his pupils and faded in a dark cloud with his sorrow._

_Felicity sighed, leaning back against the chair, sinking a little as the ground trembling against her heels, all the while Oliver watched her emotions unravel. After taking a few moments to collect herself, she took off her glasses, placed them on the desk, and then looked at him, really looked at him without doubt crossing over her heart. Oliver pulled her, pressing his bare chest up against her soft breasts, and he wrapped his arms around her, locking her into a tight embrace._

_"We're going to make it out alive," he whispered, pressing his lips hard onto her head as his warmth seeped into her._

_"I'll go to Washington, Oliver." she said, closing her eyes. "I'm staying in that city for a while. I think it will best that I say away from here. Maybe my nightmares won't follow me there."_

_He rubbed her shoulder. "It doesn't matter where you go, Felicity. Nightmares will always follow you, but you don't have to let them control you." His warm and even inhales and exhales settled down her nerves, breath by breath, with assurance and she smiled. His hand stroke through her blonde hair, gripping her into even contentment. She felt safe. The distant phantoms of her fears dissolved as the heat of his body cloaked over her, and she refused to open her eyes._

* * *

><p>Feeling thoughts rack inside her brain, Felicity barely felt her abdominal muscles clench as she mentally counted the number of reps of her will do for her morning routine exercise of sit-ups. She was flat on the floor, dressing a muted purple sleeveless shirt and jogging pants were snug over her slender hips.<p>

She placed her hands behind her head, muzzy blonde hair tumbled over her bare shoulders, knees bent as she'd gotten herself into a semi-comfortable position, and then she took a deep and cleansing breath. A wild surge of energy shot through her heated veins as she focused on her breathing pattern for a long moment, feeling a bit awkward about James sleeping a few inches from the bed, his bare feet twitched a little, giving her indication that he was still a captive of deep slumber. Carefully, she elevated her upper and lowered vertebrae from the bone until everything superior to her firm bottom wasn't touching the ground as her muscles crunched into tight knot, she held the tension for a few seconds, and then she unclenched her stomach and drew out a long breath of release.

"Ow," she hissed through gritted teeth, feeling the ridges of her spine press hard into the floor. "Maybe I should take up aerobics?" she murmured to herself, not wanting to get back up. Her long hair fanned across the floor, and beads of sweat rolled steadily down her temples. She lifted up her mobile phone off the floor, and then looked at the list -well her score of the number of reps she managed to survive during her new morning routine. "Five," she jeered breathlessly, raising her arms to declare her victory. "I'm getting better...Yes!"

"This is part of your morning training?" James spoke from the corner of the room, his voice deep and raspy. He was crouched in front of the window, bare muscle planes visible to the gray light steaming from the glass and ghostly pale blue eyes obscured by tresses of mattered hair. His focus was on her lithe frame, and she could have sworn that he blinked twice during those long moments she was felt completely immobilized under his intense stare, refusing to shift to the door.

She gave up staring at him then. For a moment, she debated on forcing herself onto her feet, but the debate only lasted ten seconds. She brushed her blonde locks back, quickly keeping a mass and tying it into a low pony tail, and then she straightened to her full height, crossing her arms protectively over her chest. She opened her mouth and pressed the back of her legs against the mattress. "Yeah, I know my goal of reaching peak human condition sucks, but you can't blame me for trying." She tossed him a faint smile, trying to prevent herself from staring at his mass of firm muscle built over his chest. She cleared her throat, and averted her eyes from him." Besides not all of us have a chiseled torso and abs like you, Mr. Powerhouse," she said with a hint of snark, all the while keeping her guard up. "Although, I don't think you would be a match with the Man of Steel. That's a guy who works out in train yards."

James furrowed his eyebrows, "Man of Steel?" he parroted back hoarsely, looking at her wary blue eyes.

"Never mind." She closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. "He's from a different place. Not my types since I prefer to have men stay grounded."

His eyes suddenly became cold and vacant, it was almost like he became absent to the world around him. He lowered his slowly and repeated swallowing motions. He wasn't use to this new connection he shared with Felicity. She was breaching his personal space, not showing only deception in her clear blue eyes, just simple and effective trust. He couldn't deny the emotions stirring within him; he couldn't dare himself to turn away from all of the humanity he had been receiving. For years he was mistreated, tortured and controlled by HYDRA, and he never had gotten a chance to really stare into someone's soul until he met Felicity in the alley. Instead of giving her a wolfish expression, his full lips move into a sluggish twitch as he held a smile, and looked deeply at her-not seeing her as a target, but as a real woman.

His flesh hand started to tremble as he swiped the loose strands out of his blue eyes. The beautiful blonde trapped in his pensive view, never flinched under his stare, as he searched for his resolve. His eyes wandered across he angelic and petite features, as though he was trying to put all his intent focus on her, blocking out everything in the room, but he couldn't say the words that were urging on the tip of his tongue. "Felicity," he stammered, throat clogging back up, his breath suffocating against his lungs. "I just want to say...Good morning."

"Oh, well I guess I should say it too," Felicity blinked, taking a moment to recollect herself. Then, her lips curved into a warm smile. "Good morning, James."

He looked at her and smiled fondly, even though everything had slogged around him. He was feeling a touch of lightheadness, but barely registered the throbbing pain raiding in his skull. He lifted his metal hand and run his fingers through his long strands. "Are you going out there today?"

"If you're meaning that I'm departing from this hotel room to get some fresh air, then yes, I am going outside. I need a coffee before I hit the library."

"I'm coming with you," he insisted, half-growl with an intimating look. "You will need protection."

Felicity sheepishly smiled, her cheeks pooled with crimson, "You really don't have to, James. I'm not one to play a damsel in distress..."

James promptly lowered himself down from the table, and moved heavy footed to her, taking her by surprise. His eyes burned like smoldering blue embers underneath his straggly brown hair and lips arched up, as he leveled his glare with her undaunted eyes. "I know how to read people, Felicity. Plus I heard you crying in you sleep. You were having bad dreams about some woman named Sara."

Her lips suddenly became bloodless, and her heart twisted with torrent emotion barring into the tissue of her pumping organ, fragile grief. She swallowed as he saw the discomfort welled in her eyes. "Sara was good friend who had been murdered in cold blood. Someone shot three arrows into her body and her older sister found her dead. We buried her in a small grave, keeping her death a secret until true killer's identity can be compromised. That's basically all I can tell you, James.

He nodded, adamantly, "I can help you," he growled, invasive and firm. He pulled her close, to close that it had become dangerous contact. He was crushing her up against him, breathing softly against her ear. "Tell me all the details and I can target down the killer. And you can bullet in their chest. I know that's what you want, Felicity."

She shook her head, "It's not what Sara would have wanted. It's not justice." Felicity rebuffed instantly, feeling shivers run up her spine the moment his metal hand stroked across her lower back. "I'm not saying that I would love to put a bullet into the killer's skull, maybe even two more to match the number of arrows he put into Sara...If I pull that trigger, James...I know that I will never be the same...I will enter a dark world craving for more vengeance to become ridden."

"I can teach you how to fight," James brushed his lips over her jaw; he was so desperately close to seal her lips with a heated kiss. "I can show you how to fire a gun with perfect aim for a warning shot."

Felicity chewed on her lip, and smirked a little, "Me with a gun...It's like signing your own death wish. I'm not good with weapons...Just with computers."

"You just need practice," he said.

She laughed under her breath, and petted his jaw, and the she placed a chaste kiss on his warm cheek, " Alright, but if you end in hospital...It will be your fault because you handed me the gun."

For once the infamous Winter Soldier had become too dumbfounded to answer her.

* * *

><p>Steve sat on the edge of the mattress, cringing at silence as darkness crept over his rigid cut-stone features. Nothing stirred. No phone calls from Natasha which always left a soothing ambiance in the air, at least it became the only modern sound he became immune to listening. He still felt unnatural; his existence had become diminished by the condemning guilt of failing to save his best friend, James Barnes from falling off Zola's train. The images still haunted him, twisting his soul into a spindling twine of scorched thread.<p>

_"Bucky," Steve felt his lungs exploding against his rib cage; he gripped the metal side rails, feeling his knuckles tense under the leather gloves. His blue eyes latched on his best friend's face, meeting the crystal azure eyes which filled with fresh tears. He moved slowly against the rattling car and extended out his hand for Bucky to take, "Bucky, take my hand." He yelled in a firm voice against the biting cold lashing over his cheekbones. "Come on, Bucky, take me hand." He clamped his burning eyes shut and heaved out a forceful breath-his heart was racing wildly as he kept his steady gaze settled on Bucky._

_Bucky clung tightly on the metal rod jutting from the car, twisting it with his weight, he tried to reach for Steve's hand, and blood stained his frigid knuckles. He swallowed down a constricting knot of fear. Blood seeped down his chin, as he clenched his teeth and redirected the position of his hand toward Steve. His chest heaved with exhaustion. He sealed his lips into a firm grimace and reached up to grip his friend's waiting hand._

_The deafening sound of the metal loosening made his thudding heart drop and he took one last glance at Steve in that wrenching moment when the rod broke off and he felt himself falling into the icy abyss waiting to swallow his mortality up. He fell into the everlasting winter._

_"No...BUCKY!" Steve thundered, feeling his heart detonate and the world around him scatter into thousands of jaded pieces. He shuddered as he listened to the echoes of his friend drifting further away. He clasped his eyelids shut, and pressed his forehead against the cold steel as he wept silently, knowing that he failed to save the one person who always had been the one who believed in him and never turned his back when other people scuffed away his choices and ridiculous dreams -James Buchanan Barnes-his blood brother and shield from the streets of Brooklyn was now just a memory engraved on the surface of his wounded heart._

_"I'm sorry, Buck." He bawled, feeling his warm tears of anguish crystallize down his face. He felt defeated._

Now, Steve was reaching a standstill, feeling the consent dull ache as it penetrated against his throbbing rib cage, sometimes he found it agonizing to breathe as his memories were awakened by the same modest and boyish face of his cherished, lifelong friend and one of his Howling Commandos who fought by his side and always had his back when they invaded Hydra's compounds. Those courageous moments, were shared in another lifetime without the division separating him from Bucky.

He blinked, too dazed to care about the world around, everything seemed to become shaded a leaden gray as he managed to glower out the bedroom's window, keeping his cobalt blue eyes focused on the lines of rain streaming down the glass panes, steady drops gathered and faded as he narrowed his head down and clutched the sheets with his tight fists. He blinked again, fighting to release the tears pricking in his eyes, unsure if he should just allow his fragile emotions to betray his stern, commanding and brave demeanor or to finally step out of the bedroom and jump back into his morning routine.

Suddenly, a soft knocking lulled his glistening blue eyes to drift toward the bedroom doorway, his broad muscles coiled with tension, he moved to the closet in haste, pulled on a pair of pants before making a mad dash out of the bedroom, he grabbed his shield leaning against the wall, preparing to ram it into the person who invaded his solitude, and slipped his wrist under the leather straps as he paced down the hall. The thralls of dread churned in his heated veins, heart pumped faster with each systematic stride, passing the black and white photographs of the Howling Commandos and old tarnished posters of Captain America which Agent Phil Coulson left for him from his collection.

He proceeded down the hallway and toward the apartment door, his blue eyes locked on the bronze knob as he surged out a ragged breath and unlocked the door, opening it with his shield leveled with his shoulder. He clamped his jaw and eased his knuckles as he stared at a pair of unyielding hands in front of him.

"Whoa, Cap." came the stunned voice of Sam Wilson as he withdrew an alarming step back from the door. "At ease, soldier."

Steve flicked his austere eyes, "Sam," he digressed in a strained and rough voice, lowering his shield to his side. "What are you doing here?" He spared a glance at his friend with quizzical expression shrouding over his smooth, carved features. Sam stood sternly inches from him in the bath of afternoon light, dressed in a leather jacket and frayed jeans which were torn from a previous workout, with sweat stains to match. His raven hair was drenched from the stale summer heat and chocolate colored eyes gleaming with trust and amiability.

"I came to check up on you," Sam replied, his voice strong and uncharacteristically comforting. "It's almost been two days, Cap." He raked his eyes over Steve's tall, strict posture.

The golden blonde haired super-solider looked better than he had the days before, but there was still distress welled in his steady gaze. His blue eyes narrowed down to the floor, and he released a silent breath, as he shifted his edgy frame against the door, his shoulders twitched and muscles tightening into knots for a still moment.

And there was something else, well, something elusive which he fought to keep veiled. The discovery of Bucky Barnes existence had left him dishearten...making him...silent. There was a faint glistening line of wetness streaking down his smooth face, Sam guessed it was from the muggy humid air, somehow he felt his veins ripple with dismay as he inched closer to his distraught friend.

Steve kept his lips sealed together in a firm line, he allowed his watery gaze to drift at the shafts of light streaming from the window. He barred his teeth and clenched his jaw tightly enough for Sam to stare at the indentation of his jawbone as a pained grimace etched over his face. "I'm fine," he growled, scowling his lips into a remorseful frown. "I'm just figuring out where to begin..." He paused, taking a step back and tried to cover his ashamed and solemn face, trying to hide the guilt and hatred from his new and trusting friend. He really didn't want Sam to him like this, so defeated and sickly looking from the haunting truth that stared him in the face around the wreckage of smashed vehicles-no, he always wanted to show strength and resilience, not the grimness of failure. It unnerved him.

"You haven't been answering your phone for two days...I was starting to get concerned." Sam's voice droned in his ears, his sharp eyes eclipsed with wariness masking over his rich brown orbs.

"You need to stop worrying about me..." Steve grumbled in response trying to assure him with ease. "I know how to handle things on my own."

Sam sighed out a shaky exhale, trying to hold a firm gaze as he met the indestructible blue eyes of Steve Rogers, his voice sounded a little raw. "This guy, whoever you claim him to be, has killed government officials and assassinated a lot of good people." He paused in his words, trying to gather more air into his lungs as he dropped his head down. "I know you think he's your best friend, maybe he once was but you need to understand that his just a weapon...A machine ordered to kill. You cannot just walk up to him on the street and pretend he's your friend. He will kill you, Cap, because that what's he's been conditioned to my friend."

Steve felt his grip on the shield's straps tighten. He stood motionless and stared at him; a dark, tumultuous look engulfed his gaze in the shafts of light.

"He tried to kill you." Sam reminded him.

Steve's face instantly darkened with a disgruntled look, he lowered a hard stare at the paper firmly gripped in his hand. "I know he's James Barnes," he replied with a hint of malice laced in his low tone. He felt a dismal breath ghost over his lips. "I know the risks of pulling this thread, Sam,he's my friend and I will not lose him again not when there is a window of a chance to restore what HYDRA has stolen from me." he gritted.

Sam shook his head minutely, "You can't blame yourself for what happened to him, Cap." He placed his hand firmly on Steve's tensed shoulder. "The paper I gave to you at the hospital has the location of one of HYDRA's safe house located within the regions of the city." He gave Steve a concerned frown as he glanced down at his hand shaking over the wrinkled paper. "I can't guarantee that Bucky will be there...but it's worth a shot."

Steve nodded sharply; he parted his lips and drew out a cleansing exhale as he looked intensely at his gleaming shield. "And I'm taking it." he mustered up a fierce growl, his defiant blue eyes burned with wells of hope as he fastened his lips into a tight line and declared out his heart-wrenching vow with a single breath escaping from his fervid lungs. "I will find him and this time I will not let him go."

Sam returned the nod and half smiled, "You sound like a man on mission, Cap." he said, removing his hand gently off of Steve's shoulder. "When do we start?"

Steve felt the edges of his smooth lips slack up into a faint smile as he looked intently down at the address, feeling a soothing ease brush over his heart. "Suit up, Falcon" he ordered, sucking in a breath and he met Sam's dark eyes." We've got a soldier to bring back home."

* * *

><p><strong> AN : A big thank you to all the readers and people who have favored this story. You guys are seriously amazing. I will try to get a short chapter with Bucky and Felicity posted before December 23rd. Enjoy and thank you. **


	6. Chapter 6

**{6}**

* * *

><p>When Felicity sauntered cautiously in between the spaces of towering bookshelves, the dim light had darkened the area as she purposely tried to avoid the brilliance of feral and pale azure irises fixed on her from the shelves. She leaned her head back against the dust covered spines of tattered books, unable to take her eyes off intruder who had suddenly broke through her guarded barriers; her breath ceased to settle in her lungs as she felt the empowering stare of him penetrate, really cutting deep into her. She inhaled the stuffy air, heart pounded with a rapid beat, racking against her rib cage.<p>

Blinking, she turned her focus on the book clutched in her gloved hand, flipping through the pages, as her seawater colored eyes roamed over the text, ignoring his elusive presence. He had been unnerving all day, following her steps like a looming shadow. She hadn't had a single moment of peace. No coffee or spending time on her laptop.

Something was unraveling between them, emotions were slipping. It always happened to her when she got close to a man, but not this type who if she dared herself to admit it that James was a hunk.

Black long coat with the top three buttons undone to display his indented chest. Faded dark jeans fitting smug around his trim and sculpted waist. Dark and long hair wind swept and touching the broad span of his shoulders. His smooth chin was swathed by a vague hint of stubble and his steel- blue eyes were tender, beautiful and penetrating. _Incredibly sexy._

"Do you mind giving me space, I can't focus with you staring at me like a hungry wolf," She requested, staring for a few moments at the look of bemusement furrowed across his indented brow, as if he was still ensnared inside a dreamless state of mind, he blinked trying to settle his focus, but she turned and moved to the another shelve before he stuffed his metallic hand into the pocket of his frayed jeans. She sighed in relief, and swayed her fingers over the clusters of books, searching for a symbol engraved on a spine, it was ancient, with etching of death printed in the ink. "If you want you can help me look for a book? Unless you are against reading, which seems highly irreverent because to me you look like a guy who doesn't mind picking up a book," she added, and James twisted his torso around, giving her a bemused look.

His still lips finally parted, as he shifted his hazy eyes to her slender form pressing against the wooden shelf. He blinked a couple more time to clear his sleep-dazed vision, and watched her, studying her intently, as his blue eyes settled on her face. He scrutinized her with intense blaze glowing in his dark pupils as he shifted in the layers of his winter jacket,and kept his sharp eyes locked onto her.

"I like books," he said with a simple brush of Russian in his deep voice. "Tell me what you're looking for, Felicity?"

She tried to avert her eyes away from indistinct stare, and crossed her arms protectively over the black coat that covered her compacted breasts. At first, she wasn't sure what to say to him, she swallowed and kept her ivory features stone-like as she watched the ridge of his full lips had slightly up at the edges as he continued taking in her beauty, with his daunting eyes. It vexed and alarmed her.

"I'm looking for a really old book, it has a symbol of two snakes intertwining," she countered, keeping her safeguard up. "The symbol represents a dark and morbid group of the slaughters of humanity... They are called the League of Shadows. I need to find out more information; before a good friend of mine decides to do something radical without the knowledge or my consent."

James opened his mouth and his laugh lines became pronounced. " Do you want me to look on this side for the book?" He asked quizzically, his voice sounded raw and strained but there was determination welling in his eyes. He pulled out his metal hand, but the jacket lifted slight, revealing his exposed brawn abdomen that was vanished with discolored scars. Felicity's eyes instinctively became transfixed on his rippling muscle, it was a distraction, making her lose all conscious of thought for a long moment, as she stared at his six pack flex with intent eyes; James smirked, he had been aware of her, but he didn't say much, and continued to scan over the books. "What does the League of Shadows do?" he affirmed with a curious tone.

"Let's see," Felicity smacked her lips together, before adjusting her glasses."They slaughter a lot of innocent people, paint the streets of cities with blood, and create terror. I think that's only the half of it since I need to catch up on my reading."

"That isn't good at all," he replied, lifting his hand up, trying his best to control the metal plates from creating a frightening sound of metal screeching. "Usually assassins kill one target for termination, sometimes a few more lives, but not a whole city." he said, his voice became distant, as she shot him with an inscrutable stare as he pulled out a book, and narrowed his eyes, staring blankly at the symbol of two snakes. "I think I've found your book..." James growled in disgust, curling his lips with hatred. "Why would anyone want to read a story about killers?"

Felicity shook her head, amused by his fierce expression, "Its better to you know your enemy before you engage, well at least that's what I've learned," she said, soothingly; grabbing the book from his hand. A harrowing tempest of distress whirled in her gut, all to familiar for her senses to respond to the evasive and unseen dangers lurking in shadows. "We can't be seen with this book, James, there are secrets written on the pages that serve a deadly purpose. I'm guessing nothing good will come out of this if we don't scat out of here."

James glared over her shoulder, noticing an tall man garbed in dark clothing, walking very slowly as if he was searching for something. "I think we're being watched..." He spoke in gravely tone, his calculated blue eyes locked on the intruder, ignoring Felicity's rapid breathing as she tried to rotate her gaze, but he prevented her head from turning, seizing her shoulder. "I see a man over at the tables, I can't tell if he's armed, but he looks unapproachable and I think he is from Eastern Asia, but I can't be sure..."

Felicity instantly narrowed her eyes to the book, "I have a hunch that this book isn't reading material," she whispered, trying to remain calm. "My friend Oliver kind of mention to me before my departure out of Starling City that the League of Shadows of Assassins believe in the occult," James leveled at confused stare with her. She swallowed, "You know, like hocus pocus and Medieval stuff... And I'm not talking about video games."

"I understand where you're coming from, Felicity, I know there is a thing of the dark arts, when I was younger I fought a man who an obsession with artifacts that held evil powers, and I chose not to believe in it at first; not until a few good men became victims from it. " James whispered in grave tone; fragments of compressed memories of a blue cube invaded his thoughts. He blinked as the images grew more intense; racking his brain, but then he fixed his sharp eyes on the armed man standing in front of the history section. "I suggest we clear out more our cover is blown." he grounded out, with a military command ragging from his throat. "Are you armed?"

"Wait... What...?" Felicity stammered a little, "I don't carry weapons with me... I'm not cut out for field work." she said, lowering her gaze to the pockets of his jeans. " I'm guessing you came here armed and dangerous, commando?" she asked, cocking one eyebrow; smirking at the dumbfound expression that morphed over his shadowed features.

James bit the inside of his lip as he watched her shift against the book case, her jacket slowly lifted showing him a glimpse of her ivory simple act shouldn't have been as sexy as it looked, but he felt the fires within him beginning to stoke again at as he listened to her hushed tone. Her question having registered at the back of his mind, a dangerous smirk crossed his lips as he dug his hands into his jeans and drew out not a handgun but a sheathed combat knife. "I like to stay on my guard," he said, darkly. "It's how I survive on the streets." Although he had been trained to become skilled with an assortment of firearms, he found knives to be his specially. He always had one either in his pocket or attached to the strap of his combat styled boots. It was his efficient weapon when engaged in a fight, quick and deadly.

"I will protect you, Felicity," James whispered, with a trusting gleam in his obscured blue eyes; until his target moved from his vicinity, and he reacted within seconds to keep her out of danger. "Do you trust me?"

"I guess..." Felicity made her teeth nipped her bottom, she sighed and then felt his metal hand, interlocking with hers as he quickly guided her closer to him. "James what are you doing?" He clamped his hand over her mouth; she felt her breasts sink into the thick muscles of his chest as he shifted his body slightly to give her more room. She rested against his side, allowing his sweltering body to warm her tense posture. She closed her eyes momentarily as his arm swathed over her waist, she opened her eyes and stared closely at the collection of freckles peppering on the flush of his skin.

"I need you to keep silent," he whispered against her neck, as his lips were a breath away from her skin. His trembling finger tips moved the loose strands of hair off her shoulder and he narrowed his chin down as his mouth hovered over her jaw. He caressed her smooth waxen skin with a warm touch of his lips as he muttered against her. "I know you're uncomfortable about this, Felicity, but I'm trying to keep you from harm." His metallic fingers gently caressed over her cheek as he allowed a long pause to linger into the air and then exhaled a heavy breath that had been holding since he looked down at her beautifully shaped lips. "You're woman I'd take a bullet for, " He confessed, his hand cupped underneath her chin as he lifted her up head against the books. "Even if it's the worse pain I will experience...it will be worth it."

Felicity steadied her breath; trying to keep a dominant composure as his lips were just a fraction away to press against her own. She clenched her eyes shut and listened to interruption of toddler crying in the children's section and she felt his breaths she felt prickling over her compromised skin.

"How are we going to make it to exit with tall, dark and spooky watching us?" she asked, trying to grasp a distraction as he encircled both of his arms over her and locked her into a warming embrace. She felt her heart flip-flopping inside the walls of her chest as jitters ignited through her slender body.

The man halted in his tracks, staring, his dark eyes settled directly onto them. He pressed a small comlink device, and spoke in a murmur, "Negative, the item has not been recovered. I have two targets in my sight..."

James breathed, a low, throaty sound that vibrated along her neck as he kissed a sensitive spot under her ear. "Pretend your my girlfriend, don't say anything, just follow my lead." He whispered, and loosened his grip over her body and framed both hands-metal and flesh on her face as he turned her toward him and she carefully placed her arms around his shoulders.

Her long fingers threading through the disheveled brown strands flowing down the nape of his neck. He leaned in, his intense gaze so full and heated with unspoken passion that Felicity felt her bones melt against his body.

When his moist lips met the softness her cheek, she couldn't stop the fire surging through her body. She pressed herself tightly against him as he nibbled at her skin, before wet heat slipped over jugular, and he took her pulse as they enhanced movements into a elegant sway; feeling their hearts skipping beats as he enfolded his arms; fully around her body and his hands seized the curves of her hips and they both guided each other with steady motion not realizing that something foreign was forming inside their bodies; something they never thought was possible to grasp in their lifetimes entered inside their restless souls as the darkness of the dimming lights outlined over their bodies.

"Nice move," she purred against his jaw as her lips rubbed over the dampened skin. She closed her eyes slightly relishing the salty taste of him. He lifted her chin up with his fingers and drove his lips over hers with a slow and moist kiss. She pulled away with a surprise gaze as she stared into his feverish molten eyes and said, "Oh the hell with it..." she pressed a hard kiss on his lips and started grinding her hips against him.

James closed his eyes and wrapped his embrace around her tighter. He kissed her and kissed her again, together they felt in sync with emotion and movement. The airy sound them was increasingly rising into humidity. He felt the lines of sweat roll down his chin and they plunged deeper, listening to their tongues slip and slide into their mouths.

He reluctantly pulled back with a half-sigh and a half-moan. His drenched tresses of hair rested on her brow, as he felt her hand rub over his chest. Their torsos were heaving together as they both gather air back into their lungs. He looked into her misty gaze. "We need to move," he breathless said, voice sounding less raspy and more rich. He glazed the salty moisture off his bottom lip.

"The contact Oliver set me up with will arrive at the tunnel stairway in one hour, " she replied, still dazed from the kiss."We need to cut all the exit points of the library and stick to the basement door. Our friend will have more of his pack coming for us, and they will be surveying the alleyway as well. We need to move fast before the contact gets killed-"

"Look, I didn't mean to kiss you," James bowed his head; he looked genuinely apologetic at that moment, regaining his breath. "I had to act."

"Don't worry about the kiss, it happens to me all the time," she gave him a tender smile, and started to walk down the aisles of book cases. "Coming, or do you want to stay here and play hide and go seek, with Mr. Friendly over there?"

James echoed back, rubbing his lips together; still tasting her kiss, "Lead the way, Felicity." he said, low and haunting voice.

Felicity smiled to herself, holding the book firmly against her chest, all the while avoiding being seen by the man, she had guessed to be one of the League's assassins; and not realizing that she had one of the deadest of the Soviet operatives' watching her back.

And if the book was more than what it seemed to be, then she needed an extra pair of eyes watching her every movement, and although she didn't turn around to meet his icy blue eyes; she knew he was close by the lingering warmth of his body heat, and that made her feel safe.

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><p><strong>AN : I needed to write romance between these two, just a small piece because the real juicy stuff will be coming later in the story. I thank all of you guys for the response of the reviews and followers of this narrative :D) I hope you like the plot so far, because things were starting to get interesting, more characters from DC comics will be involved (Zantana) ; Steve reunites with Bucky, and Felicity will start to fall in love with the Winter Soldier. Forgive me for the grammar mistakes, I will fix them all when I'm less busy. Thank you and enjoy.**


	7. Chapter 7

**{7}**

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><p>"How many safe houses are located in the city," Steve breathed with an edge of ire rattling through his vocal cords. He folded his broad arms over his stiff chest. He wilted his rigid posture against the tailgate of a metallic blue Ram truck, his alloy shield fastened against his back as the buckled leather straps rested on the span of his brawny shoulders. Dressed in his dark royal blue embossed uniform with the silver star and red stripes.<p>

Steve pressed his full, smooth lips into a firm line and locked his severe cobalt eyes on a condemned apartment complex in front of him. Then, he sighed out a crystallized breath of heated vexation. He stared intently at rows of broken windows, spray-painted brownstone and heaps of trash gathering against a dented fence.

"Everything time we come close to find his location and just leads to another dead end. This isn't a location I would expect HYDRA operatives to stash themselves away from the naked eye." He breathed out his frustration again, glanced over his shoulder and became irritably annoyed by the sound of crinkling tissue paper. He trained his irked blue eyes and stared at a greasy full-loaded cheeseburger grasped in Sam's hand. "How can you eat that when we're out in the open cold dressed in our gear? Not to mention there's rats the size of alley cats glaring right at us?" he asked, shooting his new and trusted friend Sam Wilson with a inscrutable look.

Sam shrugged causally in return, before taking a massive bite as grease and mustard stained his chin. He swallowed and then spoke, "I can only go so long on a empty stomach." He took another, relishing the tasted of grizzled beef melting over his lips. He lowered the burger down and looked at Steve with worry masking over his deep brown eyes. "You sure you don't one?"

Steve minutely shook his head; he narrowed his sullen blue eyes to his black leather boots, he suppressed the urge of hungry and curled his lips into tight a grimace. He felt the tension constricting in his stomach, bile threatening to crawl up the walls of his dry throat. He was stubborn and kept his lips stiff."I'm not hungry. My stomach is churning in knots because I'm stressed." he said with honesty laced in his voice. " I need to focus on the mission. Nothing else." he affirmed.

"You look like you're going to fall over man." Sam pointed out, with an edge of concern in his voice. He reached for a cluster of salted fries and grabbed a handful. "You've been through a lot but don't make yourself sick over this, Steve." He offered his hand. "Just take a few fries and one bite of the burger. That's all I ask."

Smiling faintly, Steve locked a skeptical gaze on the fast food, he kept his body positioned with guarded stance and furrowed his eyebrows. "I'm not sure if it's safe to eat something like that, it's not the same cheeseburger I remember having when I was a scrawny kid." he replied with an even tone, pursing his lips into a stiff line. "I hardly ate much because of my asthma problems... That damned illness prevented me from enjoying the good stuff that Brooklyn diners had to offer before the depression period."

Sam groaned and rolled his dark eyes, and blew out a short breath. "Stop talking and eat." he chastised. "We're not moving until you put at least one fry into you, Captain Rogers."

"Alright," Steve deadpanned out a ragged breath; he glanced at Sam's dark gray and black vest underneath the leather jacket and strapped over a plain muted gray shirt. He wore bicep guards and a pair of camouflage patterned pants with the U.S flag emblem and shin guards. A pair of black boots were done up tightly, and his flight backpack and goggles were on the back seat in the truck. Shaking his hand, he grabbed a fry and chewed off a bite sized piece.

His eyes snapped down to the burger. "Okay, I'll admit it does taste a little good." he said with a hard grimace twisting into a weak rueful grin. He markedly surveyed the desolated area and then snapped his sincere deep blue eyes back to Sam and drew out a weak sigh. "I'm trying to adapt to this modern world, Sam. It just doesn't feel like home anymore. Everything I remembered about this city is just a memory that keeps on fading away until it never existed in the first place." he grumbled with a nonchalant tone edging up his raw throat. He was always to honest.

Sam leaned further back against the tailgate, crumpling the yellow tissue paper into a ball and stuffing it back into the bag. "Let me guess, this assassin friend of yours, Bucky Barnes is the only person from the past you have left?"

"Bucky is more than a friend to me. He's like my protective big brother." Steve answered with a brush of cadence of gratitude in his low voice. His cobalt blue irises hazed with despondence as he absently caressed his gloved fingers over the blue painted steel. He parted his lips, releasing a deep, dry breath. "He was the only one who believed in a skinny little punk when others didn't and he taught me how to never give up the fight even when the bullies had me on the ropes-" his voice suddenly grew distant was memories became overlays in his mind.

_"Hey," Bucky growled seizing the boy's wrist and force him into the wall, twisting his arm and making the bones crack and holding his face against moldy brownstone, pinning him down with his weight. He locked his fiery blue eyes on the pocket knife clutched in the thug's stubby hand; he furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the stain of blood on serrated edge of the blade. He gnashed his teeth together and squeezed the wrist which made the knife drop to the ground. He parted his lips and drew out a deep breath as he looked down at Steve slowly rearing up to his feet._

_"It's always a game with you jerks." he hissed, contorting the arm against the brick and over the boy's shoulder. "You pick on the little guy, beat him and go home to mama without a scratch on your fat ass." He whispered into his ear, lifting the sharp weapon from the ground and holding it inches from his eyes. "I'm going to release and drop the knife and you are going to scam unless you want to see how I use a knife. Do I make myself clear, jerk?" Bucky growled at him with a menacing voice._

_"Why are you defending the runt?" the boy shot back in a grunt, looking down at Steve with a disgusted looked shadowing over his thick features. He managed to wiggle his arm out of Bucky's tight grasp. "He's nothing but a weak, little gutter stray."_

_Bucky took an involuntarily step back, being careful and slow as he demonstrated the control of the situation and when stared at the thug stepping from the wall, he dropped the knife on the ground._

_"Beat it, punk." He spoke with an unyielding voice, he shook his head and turned his back and moved to Steve with a hardened gaze before he smirked, twisted his slender frame around and rammed a fist into the boy's jaw, making his opponent crash his body against a trash can. "That's for calling my pal, a gutter stray." he advanced closer and kicked his boot into the boy's backside. "That was for anything else-now pick up your ass and high tail it out of here."_

_The boy quickly regained his balance and staggered backwards as Bucky intimidatingly cracked his knuckles._

_"Do yourself a favor, kid. Never pick on a boy with health problems again. He might have someone stronger and better equipped than you watching his back..." he smirked cockily._

_The thug nodded frantically, swiping his sleeve over his bloodily nose, and then he sprinted out of the alley._

_Bucky lifted his jaw defiantly with a broad smile crossing over his lips; he turned and watched Steve limp his way over to the stairway. "Dammit Steve," he lightly shook his head. "I told you to keep your mouth shut. Do you ever listen?" he glared down at a frail and pale Steve Rogers sitting on the bottom step of the stairwell, blood dripped from his nostrils and the arch of his upper lip was split into a red gash. "What happened this time, punk?"_

_"That bully was trying to mess up a old soldier's grave." Steve swiped the back of his bony hand under his nose, wiping away the stick blood from his skin. "I tried to stop him and I became the one they messed up, Buck." he sheepishly grinned._

_Bucky blew out a frustrated breath; he crouched down on his knees. "Well, I've seen you look worse," he drawled with his rich Brooklyn accent, placing his hand on Steve's knee. "You need to stop pretending that you're a hero-I know that your heart was in its place when you stopped that jerk from ruining an old soldier's grave but whatever is buried underneath isn't there anymore. It's just a shell of a good man who wore a uniform to fight the big bullies." He removed his shirt off his sweaty, graven chest and used the material to dab the blood off of Steve's bruised cheekbone while he met the young blonde-haired boy's vivid blue eyes._

_"Do you know what he called me, Buck," Steve said with growl in his weak voice, his body began to shake with repressed anger. "A skinny little nobody." He lowered his head down, and screwed his eyes shut. "A sick little runt."_

_"Hey," Bucky whispered in a soothing voice, he placed his large hand firmly on Steve's thin shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze over the jutting bones. "When I look you, I don't see a skinny, sickly looking nobody." he remarked with his brightest voice, carefully dabbing the material of his shirt over Steve's bruised and gaunt jaw line. "In fact you are stronger than you know, so don't go beating yourself up because some jerk probably from Jersey made you think you're nothing."_

_Steve lifted his head and gave his friend a lopsided smirk. "I don't know where I'd be with you, Buck." His solemn gaze fell to his grime covered knuckles._

_"Probably dead and stuffed in alley with a damn trash can lid clutched in your hand." he curved his lips into a cocky grin; patting Steve's scuffed up knee. "It's a good thing you've got me to watch your back, little punk."_

_"You forgot about little Rebecca," Steve reminded Bucky of his little sister, with a broad smile. "She's a little tough Brooklyn spitfire."_

_"I know," Bucky dropped his gaze slightly down, sighing out a disheartened breath, "Becky is still just a kid-I've taught her the ropes of surviving the streets, but I didn't teach her everything when they locked her in that damn home for girls." He clenched his jaw, stiffing the lingering baby fat over his sharp cheekbones. "They told me that I wasn't suitable in their books to raise my own sister." His full lips slacked into a glimmer of a grimace. "That I couldn't be trusted -hell, what do their dense minds know, I'm still her big brother and I will see her anytime I want."_

_Steve winced; though his upper lip was slightly split open he managed to say, "When are you planning to see her?" He asked, hissing in pain, his thin arm cradled over his chest. "Do those dames even allow you to visit with her, Buck?"_

_Bucky shrugged with a casual grin playing on his lips. "On the weekends, but I manage to sneak on the roof when they're sleeping and star gaze with her. She loves spending time with me." He narrowed his eyes slightly down to his knees, feeling the guilt simmer in his veins. "She's being looked after and that's all that matters to me...Besides I've got you to deal with, punk." He coyly cocked up one of his eyebrows, and jibed Steve into the shoulder with his elbow._

_Steve ran his frail hand through his short golden hair, His face pale and full of discomfort. "I haven't decided if I should feel honored or guilty."_

_Bucky smiled, ruffling his friend's blonde hair. "Knowing your righteous ass, probably guilty." he brisked at him with a low tone._

_He gave Bucky a lopsided, bashful smirk. "Thanks for your kind words, Buck."_

_"Hey, that's what friends of for, little punk." He lightly punched Steve's shoulder, hoping the skin wouldn't bruise his blue eyes bright with brotherly tenderness._

_Steve nodded with a cozy smile, "Friend till the end, big jerk?"_

_"No, Steve," Bucky replied in a soft brush of sure but truthful words, he placed his hand on Steve's shoulder, jerking him slightly. __"Brothers until the end..."_

Blinking the images out of his feverish blue eyes, Steve gritted his teeth as he felt the remorse simmer under his skin. "It's my fault you know. I caused Bucky to feel the pain. I think he's trying to remember." He took another fry out of Sam's hand. His stomach whirled with heavy flows of acid and his brow gleamed with humid and sickening sweat. "I made him become the Winter Soldier by allowing his body to fall into Zola's hands."

"You know, that's not true." Sam stepped closer. "After surviving the mission Project Insight, you know that is a damn lie and you're allowing yourself to take the blame for something that was out of your control. Bucky fell off the train not because you failed—no it was because he made his choice to not to take your hand, and because of that choice. He lives for HYDRA."

That was harsh. He didn't know how to react and the words escaping from Sam's lips were not break his spirit down, but to finally make him understand that everything he did to save Bucky Barnes wasn't a burden of failure to carry with him—it was the truth, painful and cold but necessary to hear. He took a long moment and recollected his emotions. "I know you're trying to make this situation lighter, but the more I dig deeper in the truth it becomes darker, to a point where it consumes my grief." He returned.

Sam sighed softly, "Do you ever think that this new mission you've placed on yourself is to restore your guilt?" Steve lifted his head, his eyes glistening with wetness. "They screwed him up bad. He is a asset. I have a feeling he doesn't want to be saved." He looked sadly at Steve, afraid and worried about his friend's life."What if you fail to save him? You know he won't stop."

"I'm doing this for Bucky. Not because he's my friend but I made a promise. I will save him." Steve fired back. He glanced at him from the corner of his eye. He didn't want to feel the pressure growing in his chest, the shattering sense of disbelief that harbored him into another abyss of despair. "I need to help him regain the memories HYDRA stole from him. He's always been more than a friend to me, he's my brother. You think I'm just going let him disappear again without knowing that truth?"

Sam leaned his back against the right tail light, crossing his muscular arms over his chest. His face narrowed as he released a long exhale. "We've a got three more locations to recover. I'm not saying that we have a window of chance to find him-if we do its small." he quietly admitted. "Do you think he knows his name?"

Steve released a slow breath. Bucky reacted to his name when his metal fist was inches from smashing vicious into his bloodied and swollen face. Obviously the assassin responded to the familiar tone of his surrendering voice, but that frightened and disturbed look in his teary blue eyes that burned with controlled rage unveiled to him in that second off tasting a drop of warm blood run over his lips, the man beneath the layers of the tortured shell of the heartless and merciless killer was still present inside. If he hadn't said the name, in the final moment of their fight, then Bucky would have taken his life, completed his mission and eventually fall allowed his broken form to fall on his knees at the feet of HYDRA.

The damage of those illusions he forced back into the recess of his mind, left him torn...Steve felt like a captive as blood drained from his cheeks and images of a twisted and tortured Bucky Barnes strapped on Zola's table replayed. He didn't want to see his best friend fade, and there was a tiny possibility that he was going to restore Bucky from what Hydra and Zola had stolen within those years of being subjected to pain and ice. And he was going to make the ghost become flesh and blood again.

Sam read over the pain etched on Steve's smooth and chiseled face. He placed his hand on the super-soldier's shoulder and allowed the silence to rest behind them, "You know that we'll have to take him out. I have a high dose of sedative that will do the job quickly in case he gets hostile and case he tries to kill you."

Steve fell silent; a frown crept over his lips. "I refuse to see him as a threat." He narrowed his eyes to the ground. "I will take him out if that becomes the only option to get him to come with us."

"Okay." Sam agreed. He slammed the tailgate shut and moved to the driver's side door. "I have a feeling it's going to be a long and exhausting night."

"Yes. It's not going to be easy." Steve glanced at him, grabbing his helmet from the back and walked to the passenger side door and spoke with a broken voice, "But that's what happens when a friend is in trouble."

"Well, I hope you friend doesn't use us as midnight target practice." Sam replied dryly, before sliding down on the seat and started the truck's engine.

Steve lifted his blue eyes to the ashen tarnished sky, feeling a sudden weight off his broad shoulders and whispered faintly and with a sure tone, "He won't."

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><p>Wild flickers of intense torch light gleamed in the darkness of her still pupils, Nyssa al Ghul flatted her rigid posture against the stone pillar, her hands cuffed behind her back. She had raided two museums, claimed priceless artifacts and tattered inscriptions written in Arabic and stained with essence of unspoken evil- she was a part of the League of Shadows current plot for their reformation of invading corrupt cites. She received the orders of her father, and reluctantly accepted the task of inflicting the marked targets across the globe. Tonight, she was dressed in a black ceremonial armor with a sword strapped to her back and silver gauntlets capturing the glow of torch light.<p>

She stood regally, with a stony expression, and looked at the acrimonious dark haired woman clothed with rich red silk,_ The Priestess of the Demon_, who had been circling around a bounded mercenary kneeling at his mistress's presence while blood was draining from his cheeks.

"Behold the power of the seven deserts," The woman declared with a rich exotic voice; she held up a crimson bladed sword into the air and pointed at the shafts of moonlight. Instantly the blade glowed into a pulsing hue of blood, and then she lowered to the level of the man's head."Tonight we shall taste the sweetness of our reckoning." She held the blade at the mercenary's throat. "Tonight you will serve your commitment to our true justice."

Nyssa intently watched the soul of the man being drained as the sword collected the essence of his life force. She clenched her eyes shut trying to block out the sight of horror as he screamed until his breath ceased. When she finally opened them, all that was left of the man was a fired bony husk.

She gasped out loud in disbelief. "This can't be real."

At that, the wielder of the weapon, beheaded the mercenary, the detached skull dropped to the ground and shattered into fragments until all the reminded was a pile of dust.

"Once we have our book returned to us," the priestess called out to the shadows, with sinister gleam in her darkened eyes. "The world will fall into rivers of blood..."

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><p>The long trek to the subway tunnel was full of somber silence. Felicity gritted her teeth against the flecks of snow, staring intently down the sidewalks. On the outside she wore a calm semblance, her seawater colored eyes focused ahead of her, but James sense her resistance. She was fighting against her own pain, guilt and failures. She refused to allow tears to sting against the frozen flesh of her tensed cheeks. It felt a smoldering wedge had been cut out of her heart as overlays of memories with Sara lulled her back into that deep pit of remorse. She hadn't been looking back at him, hadn't been giving him that beautiful smile melted his ice encased heart. She became guarded, confine, and absent from the world around her.<p>

As he walked close, he detected faint sobs escaping from her chortling throat, and then he came to standstill at the crosswalk. Felicity leaned her rigid back against the cement pole, clutching the tattered book against her chest. Her tousled blonde hair whipped against her face, as she lowered her eyes, refusing to mirror his pale blue ember hidden underneath steams of lengthy hair. He watched her take off her glasses, as she shook her head, and muttered under her breath. He took a step forward, and placed his metal hand on her shoulder, "Felicity?" his gruff voice broke her away from those rapturous thoughts.

Her blue eyes held better clarity as she stared up into his steady gaze. Her chilled lips parted, and he was about to brush the strands of loose hair out of hers when she tore her gaze away. "I fine," she blinked, collecting herself. Like she always did. "I guess the cold air is making my eyes water."

"You know I read your emotions," he whispered, his gloved fingers tracing over the curve of her jaw. Instantly, he asked her the question that had been swelling over his heart from the moment he kissed her. "It's about the kiss. I know it was right of me to do that." He lowered his head, and swallowed down a shallow breath. "I know it made you uncomfortable. I don't blame you if you want silence between us." he trailed off, with almost an ashamed edge in his voice.

Feeling the left over moisture dissolve in her eyes, she turned to him and placed her hand on his rough cheek. "I use to believe that I was made of ice because my father used to say to make that I didn't feel. " She hesitated for three seconds, well at least that the amount of time she calculated before adding, "It has always been hard for me to attach to things. Each keep I get close to someone that end up in a grave and so does a part of me."

"Felicity," he said slowly, staring deeply into her eyes. "You need to let everything go. What happened to you, it was never your fault. Bad things happen to good people all the time. I lost someone a lifetime ago...I think he was my friend, but I can't remember..." He breathed, deep and low, biting on his lip. "I can see his face, but I can't say his name. It's like everything about him has been wiped out of me."

She stroked his firm bicep, and he stared down at her, perplexed behind the hazy walls of grayness. His jaw clenched, and his eyes sealed shut. For a moment, he drifted back into the unrelenting ice-his past- he tensed to bring his muscles to ease under the warmth of her touch. "I guess were both emotional wrecks?" she said, but he didn't answer. Nipping her lip, she upturned the corners of her mouth into a soft grace of smirk. "Don't feel bad about kissing me..."

James snapped his eyes opened, and nestled his hand in the curly locks of her hair. He just stared at him, with changeless gaze of blue. He gave her a small, not even a hint of a smile as he struggled to keep himself leveled on the solid ground below him. "I haven't been in accompany of a beautiful woman in a long time. I forget how to dance." He paused, feeling his tongue growing thick in his mouth. " I don't even know if I can..."

She took a moment to glance at the bustling traffic around them, it wasn't the best place to share another kiss, but she didn't care about their reactions. Through this was trail and error, a risk, she wanted to finally do something brazen. She wanted to devour his full lips, and replenished her hunger, and to taste the freedom away from her torments and spiraling thralls of nightmares. "Not a brag, but I'm a pretty good dancer partner."

His stomach churned, and he caressed the exposed skin of her neck. The pulse of her jugular was a comfort against his rigid fingers."If we survive this mission. I will take you out dancing."

He had put her in place where she didn't want to be right now, he made her grasp different emotions that she had never felt before-it was a little frightening.

She had never opened herself to anyone before, all the men of her past were just to fill her sexual drives from a nightly buzz of alcohol intake, she used many gullible men to filled her lustful hunger that only lasted for a few hours before she realized they were worthless, and then she would go out on the prowl looking for fresh easy prey. Only with James, the carnal nature and desire was replaced with true feelings.

Feelings that she had never felt before, he never mistreated her or seized control of her body. He was always gentle and accepted her choices. That was what was frustrating, Felicity Smoak never needed anyone, she was a career girl and her career was all about her independence. She masked her own heart from Oliver and Barry, not because she was afraid to get it broken but she was afraid that she break the man that only see the true woman inside her mortal shell.

Attachment was like walls closing in on her, suffocating the very air she breathed. So was the feeling of being alone and left with no comfort to bury herself into.

Felicity mashed her teeth into her lip, feeling a sudden ache in her gut as she inched closer to him as he watched her with a guarded expression, and then placed her hand gingerly on his bristled jaw. He flinched as she caressed her fingers tenderly over his flushed skin but made no effort to push her away as she brushed the loose wisps of hair off his forehead, looking into his hardened blue eyes with her melting pools of turquoise, and then she moved her gloved fingers and run one of them over the deep indent in the center of his heavy chin.

"I think we both know what we want," she whispered, a small throaty noise. She pulled away and started walking further from his reach, he stood motionless feeling her words surge his heart, and he knew the answer, but he didn't want to confess it. He needed his space from her in those moments, because he knew there were going to be more raging battles of their heartfelt emotions that would eventfully tumble out of them.

He turned his gaze to her, looking directly at her as she turned on her heel and stared back at him, and then he raced toward her and crashed his body against hers, enclosing his arms around her as she gently curled up against his heaving torso, and he lifted her chin up with his hand and dropped a kiss over her lips as he inhaled her in. Both of their eyes slipped shut as they fully embraced each other in the snowfall , knowing they both had found not what they wanted in their lives but what they needed, and that was the answer the pang on their hearts.

When James finally broke his lips away to gather an intake of air, and stroked his metal hand over her soft cheek and whispered deeply, " So I do." And with that, he claimed her lips once more into a tentative caress with his upper lip and felt her warm mouth respond us they both deepen into a kiss that wasn't just full of passion but also healing that mended the wounds they had been both scarred with in another lifetime.

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><p><strong>AN: A big thank you to all the readers. Sorry, if there are grammar mistakes. I wanted to get this chapter out asap, but right now I'm fighting a touch of flu. I will fix them all when I can. Also I love writing Bucky and Felicity romance. Until next time, enjoy and thank you.**


	8. Chapter 8

**{8}**

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><p>The hums of the subway train rattled through the grimy cement walls of the vacant tunnel, rats never stirred when Felicity held out her cellphone in front of her, using it as a light source while holding the book in the next of her arms. There had been so questions that triggered her concealed despair as she settled a gaze on him; crafting every scattered detail of her past into something solid and unbreakable.<p>

For years she stood in doorways of men waiting to be welcomed; now she had been a chance-a small fraction of a chance to restore the jaded pieces of her heart. She had given into the illusion that love was always uncertain, insubstantial and detrimental. She was part of the crowd of disbelief and doubt. Her life was never really full of optimistic views on relationships, and she was reluctant to unmask her true self because of her past. No program in a database, clean slate or hair dye would ever erase the real Felicity Smoak.

It felt like the two of them had been walking through the dark passage for hours, searching for any sign of Oliver's contact. She was growing restless, hungry and irritable as the stale air with lingering smells of urban decay hit her nose. They eventually settled in a deserted tunnel near the old main lines of rusted tracks and crumbled pillars supporting the archways above them. Doing what James regard as 'safety protocol' they trudged into another section of the passageway, and reached a barricade at bolted door which led to a stairway from the sewer mains; just another form of obstruction that unnerved her as she wanted to kick her boot into the heaps of rotting wood and corroded pipes, but James snaked his metal arm around her trim wrist, and pulled her a few inches before she unleashed her bottled out fury to the rats.

"Breathe, Felicity, there is not sense of tearing the walls down." James brushed his warm lips against the flesh of her ear, his voice heated with darkness that almost made her mouth fall lamely open.

"You're right," she replied in a breathless voice, irritation evident in her tone. She clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes at the phone. "First thing when I get back, I'm getting my clothes dry cleaned and using Oliver Queen as a punching bag."

James knew he was trending on thin ice with her, for years he had been subjected to feel the unrelenting bite of coldness piercing through his bones, injections, and tortures to break him down as a submissive pup. He didn't know how to respond to human touch, the comfort of warmth radiating from a hand and the sweetness of a woman's lips against his mouth. Deep inside the twisting threads of his existence, he saw Felicity as his heart shield, not a woman to be used as his romantic partner but a real treasure that he avowed to protect.

"I can teach you to put him on the ropes," he said, before a crooked smirk cracked over his full lips, which evolved into a devilish smile.

Felicity grinned back, despite the harrowing sense that seared through her when she settled her eyes back at the book, and she sighed. "As much as I would love to see Oliver battered, I can't think about harming him, even through at the moment it is the only thing on my mind, but I can't because him, Digg and Roy are the only family I have in Central City. We protect each other and always hope that the darkness will fade." She bit her lip, and took a long to recollect herself, before adding. "It's what families do..."

James couldn't move; all muscles tensed as he failed to process the words to answer back to her. His blue eyes were distant and unblinking; the disbelief and confusion in them for her to see the warring torment as he looked at her and the book held in her gloved hand.

"I remember having someone close to me," He resentfully replied, clenching his jaw. "I think he was a friend...Or maybe a little brother. I'm sure."

She leaned into him, wrapping her arms over his waist. She rested her head into the firmness of his torso, feeling thumping of his heart vibrate against her ears. "It's okay, James, I suck at remembering things too, well, only the unimportant things of my past. Which is, come to think of it, pretty much everything from childhood to MIT."

James threaded his metal fingers, delicately through her blond ringlets and heaved out a content sigh once he felt her warmth invade his heart. He could feel the muscle starting to glaze with feverish sweat and the smell of the lavender fragrance coated on her ivory skin tainted his nostrils. He noticed a fading strand touching the nape of her neck, the color was different, almost like his shoulder-length hair, darker brown. "Why to you a different color in your hair?" he questioned, prodding the tip of his tongue over his lip.

"Oh, that," Felicity smiled nostalgically to herself. "Well, I wasn't always blond." She eased herself back from him, and glanced over his shoulder and sighed as she grabbed a piece of her hair. "I'm really a brunette. Just like my father, but I've done things in the past, some very regrettable and to make myself not exist in governmental databases I changed my look and slowly built this new life under the shadow of Oliver Queen. Who happens to be one of the richest men in the world and he knows how to survive through any circumstance."

James didn't quite understand and narrowed his eyes as he thought. Then it hit him, and his eyebrows arched almost to his hairline. "You had another... life?" He pressed his lips into a tight line, looking down at her heeled boots. "Did you cause harm to someone? Was that the bad thing you did?"

Felicity's face crumpled into an expression of hardened anguish and she looked at him with crestfallen seawater colored pools that seemed to be forming a row of tears as dull ache penetrated through her chest. She swallowed back the throat clogging pain, and protectively crossed her arms over her breasts, showing him her guarded exterior. "I never meant to hurt anyone, but I was dating this guy at MIT, I thought he was someone I could trust, but I was wrong, and ended up in the deep-he was the one who drowned."

She tore her eyes away from his passive gaze, she felt utterly condemned. "Years later, he made an reappearance and used everything I had created against me-hurting the people in my city and almost taking my mother away from me..." She gnashed her teeth into a hard clench, and seethed out a breath. "It was all because I didn't take the plunge with him." She spat out, her slender frame trembled with anger. "He used my mother as a target to get through me, but I made him fail his mission of mass computer terrorism and I restored everything he took away from me." Her eyes resettled back onto James' scruffy face, and then she found herself staring into the stormy clouds of darkness welled in his pale blue eyes. Feeling, a sense of security and reassurance; she curved her lips into a weak smile. "Let's stop talking about the past...It's getting us nowhere..."

"You're a great and beautiful woman," he sheepishly admitted, but he was honest. Sensing her uncertain reaction, his lips held a timid grimace. He had to contain his deep feelings about her, and quickly allowed a steely resolve to etch over his chiseled and obscured features. He cleared his throat, as he fixed his eyes on the jacket hugging at her curves. All traces of manners and civilly his Irish mother raised him with vanished as primal urges of fire seized his body. It was a look of pure and intent hunger. Things were going to get very dangerous between them, if they didn't continue with the mission. "I mean that you are brave and very..."

Feeling his sudden intrusion of crossing her barriers, Felicity stood her ground, and then smirked. "You were going to say dangerous or intelligent, right?"

James stood still a moment; a pensive look fleetingly crossed his rugged and handsome features. It was a look that showed inner turmoil and emotional trails waging beneath his daunting and fierce exterior. The steel torn exterior of the Winter Soldier, the face he used to wore to intimate his targets, breaking skulls and destroying innocent lives with one pull of a trigger. Those memories left permanent scars on his heart, and he couldn't escape from the impenetrable guilt that reminded him that was HYDRA's caged and abused monster.

"I...Uh..." He was lost from words, almost like his voice had been locked back into his throat. He could see her own pain as he stared beyond her light eyes. The compelled him to take a step forward and coil his hand over her arm. "Look, I'm not the best at understand emotions, Felicity." He curled his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he spoke in a ragged breath, "I'm not even sure if I even know how to talk to a dame...I mean a girl." He halted in his words, trying to figure out where that Brooklyn accent came from-it was olden and yet very familiar to ghost from his lips. Instantly, he regarded the darkness of the tunnel with a molten glare of blue, and then turned his eyes back to her. He gently rubbed his fingers over her muscles, easing the weaving knots of tension with soothing pressure, it felt like a wave of grace crawled over her skin.

"I'm not used to this, James," she said, feeling her emotions betray her, as water coated her eyes. "I don't know how to react, not after all the men I have pushed away. I'm not a good girl. I'm dangerous because know how to hurt good people with just a tap on a keyboard."

Felicity brushed a tear away from underneath her eye with a gentle caress of his thumb. "I don't care about that, " he replied in a husky, deep and shuddering voice, "You're also the reason why I'm still alive, Felicity," He dropped a light kiss on her forehead, holding the soft pressure against her clammy brow. "Let's forget about our regrets. We both deserve a little freedom from the past."

"Finally we agree on something," She said breathlessly; dropping the book and enclosing her arms around his neck. Her fingers curled over the mass hair covering the expanse of his shoulders as she felt the texture of his iron like skin against her fingertips He was her unraveling mystery.

She was looking forward to discovering something new in the coming days they will share during all hours of the day. She knew one day she would tell from the words of the truth seared on her heart for now she just wanted quiet and his soft lips kissing over her mouth.

He responded her desires, dropping his soft lips as they jerked over hers in hitching motions, her compromised lips melted into the liquid honey seeping from the depth of his mouth. He slipped his tongue slowly and tentatively into her mouth as he led into moist and warm interlock, sucking the air from her lungs and exploring deeper inside her mouth as she released soft moans of pleasure into the air.

She pulled away to catch a gulp of air, his steel hand cupped under her chin as he pulled her closer, devouring her mouth once again as she moved against him. He slashed and swayed his tongue against the roof of her mouth as she dug her nails into leather of his jacket and arched her breasts against his chest and closed her eyes.

They kissed for a full breathless minute, and then they pulled away and stared into each other's eyes, recovering and silent. James tangled his fingers through her curly strands of messy hair.

"What happened to us in the past, Felicity, stays in past." He whispered with a sincere tone, as his breath started to become a lapping wave of heat over her lips.

"Even our serious mistakes?" she asked, splaying her hand over his sweaty and broad jaw.

"Yes," he replied softly, caught her lips in a quick kiss. "We're starting fresh, Felicity."

She smiled lovingly, and then pressed a soft caress over his slightly swollen lips as they fully embraced, and melted into the shadows around them while not realizing the pages of the book were starting to glow in front of their boots.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: A big thank to all the readers and followers of this story. I just can't get enough of Bucky and Felicity romance. There will be more heated passion to come in future chapters. I will fix all the grammar edits when I'm not busy. Enjoy and thank you.**


	9. Chapter 9

She opened her eyes to the cold tension of his metal arm protectively holding her against his torso. Feeling the strength of his firm muscles against her fingers was the first thing she did when her partial of her senses awoke.

It had made her scarred heart feel all slushy inside, but she refused herself the luxury of smiling and pushed the feelings back down where she kept everything locked away in a encrypted vault. Good and tight. When she dared a chance to look into his pale blue eyes-the colors of ice and steel, her posture became unbalanced.

The world titled and then spun as his intimating exterior melted with a cocky gleam in his obscured gaze. She lifted her hand to his face, tracing her index finger over the arched shape of his lips while he stood frozen against her slender frame, staring down at her with lost eyes.

"I have to admit, this wasn't something I had expected to happen to me," she finally said, after a long, long time of staring. "We hardly know each other, and yet when we kiss..." She paused in mid-sentence, feeling her cheeks flush was heat. It was embarrassing. Her heart seemed to skip a couple of beats, and eyes water against the humility in the stale air."It's like we've been doing it for a really long time...I know it sounds corny and you don't have to say anything because it doesn't make sense. You're a guy with serious memory loss and a cool bionic arm and I'm just a computer hacker who works for a billionaire with a whole lot of family and anger issues."

There was a shift in Jame's icy blue eyes. He blinked and recalculated his thoughts, narrowing his stare to the spell book. He figured it was a book connected with the forbidding arts of magic. He remembered observing recovered artifacts in the grand halls of Castle Zemo. Undaunted, he shoved the book aside from Felicity with a quick push of his boot. "I don't care about your past, Felicity." he said, honesty tore from his lips. He was careful with his words. "We both have messed up lives, but we are fighters to the end."

Doubt flooded her thoughts. She'd promised herself not to become involved with relationships. The game of love was a distraction. A dangerous and twisted distraction. She closed her eyes, staring back at the visage of her former Gothic and rebellious self-jet black hair streaked with purple and dark lips. The bad girl who compromised secured databases and created wide spread viruses. She could never wipe her hands clean from the sins she created, her past always found a way to obstruct her from having a normal life. _For once do something bold and daring...Live...Laugh...Play hard._

Finally her guarded heart agreed to his words. The decision was clear. She removed her glasses, stuffing them into the pocket of her jacket. Leaning in closer, she flicked her blue eyes, staring into his darkened gaze of crystal azure.

"I just want you to think me, as not an item." She confessed in a low, smoky murmur. "I want you to see me as woman. Flesh and bone who can feel ...Who cries over burnt popcorn and rescue animal shows." She nuzzled against the broad muscle of his chest. The pulsing heat was melting the chills out of her; the intense thumping sounds of his heart made a smile creep across her face without the permission of protective and loving feelings Jame's metal and flesh arms enveloping over her. "That's the real me...James."

James withdrew from their precious embrace, his gloved hands settled on her curves and his blue eyes locked with her seawater orbs he become so familiar staring into. His eyelids drooped, but she drank into lazy, infectious smile the spread over his scruffy face. He looked like he almost free again. Human. She caressed her fingers over his jaw, catching loose strands of mussed brown hair and watched the darkness bathe over his ivory skin. Nothing could ever compare to her soothing touch. She every knot of pain away, and made him feel restored. He took a deep breath, and traced his thumb along the curve of her jaw.

Felicity blushed, trying to hold a stern composure. "Stop giving me the silent treatment. You've been doing that a lot. Since we left the hotel."

"Sorry, it's been a long time since I've talked to someone without knowing what to say..." James said with apologetic tone. His voice had been scraped raw with tinge of fierceness ragging up his throat, like he tried to convince himself, his mind that HYDRA's watchdogs weren't patrolling the shadows, waiting to claim him and throw him back into stasis chamber. He looked over her shoulder, eyes still hooded with wariness, like he sensed them falling into danger, but he to pretend that she was safe from harm. Swallowing down a lump of resentment, he snapped his eyes back to her, "I'm use to this, Felicity." he admitted, biting down his lip-his natural habit when tension solidified in the air. "The life I came from before I met you...It wasn't something worth living. I've done terrible and hurtful things to good people...I still have nightmares."

"Everyone has nightmares," she replied with a brush of ease in her voice. "I think we shouldn't get into details...Not until we officially go out on a real date. I know we've kissed a few times, but we have to take things slow. It's how strong relationships are structured." She sighed, blocking out the musty smell thickening in the air. "Let's deliver this book and go back to the hotel...Take a few showers...Order takeout?"

At first James furrowed his eyebrows, and he gave her a charming grin, "Sounds like a plan." He said, his voice low and thick as his heart fluttered in his chest. Her eyes widened at the measure of fondness in his tone as his pale blue eyes fell on her lips. "I'm paying for the food." he insisted, very gentlemen like, resent scripted across his chiseled features. "I carry Russian ruble with me in case I have to extract myself before being compromised."

"Compromised?" Felicity repeated. Her eyes creased with concern. "Is someone after you? I think I should know the truth before we-"

James heavy and deaden blue eye fell to the ground, unable to look at her. He couldn't let Felicity know about his past, assassinations, tortures in the Red Room-the mindless inducement of mind alerting serums and enhancements. Mostly importantly, that he was the deadliest Soviet sniper and assassin-the Winter Soldier. He couldn't drag her into the dark world of HYDRA's reign.

He shut his weight eyes, and drew out a couple of strained breaths. "There is nothing for you to be worried about Felicity. I will never allow anything to happen to you..." Pressing his lips into a firm line, he placed his silver hand firmly on her shoulder, squeezing the muscle gently; opening his feverish eyes and then he looked severely into her grayish-blue pools of armed hope, but he was still agonized by unrequited feelings. He spoke carefully, trying wear sincere visage to her. "You're my mission."

When he finished, Felicity didn't know what to say, her eyes grew a tint brighter. She fell into a trance of a submission, ensnared by the specks of light shining over his clear blue irises, she was sinking into the unleveled ground. A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips, she pivoted her heels, turning her back on him for a second-recollecting her thoughts and choices. She never felt so natural and free with a man before-he was changing her impermanent world.

Exhaustion had left her locked in soul, as she liberated herself from the pain, grief and burdens of guilt-her unbidden weaknesses. Taking a deep, deep breath, she rotated around beckoning him to move closer-to invade her space with permission gleaming in her beautiful eyes. "That's the first I've ever heard a man call a woman...It's sort of has more powerful meaning." She replied, locking her light eyes to his pale azure embers mirroring her stare under tresses of disheveled long hair that draped over his chiseled and well-sculpted face.

"Sorry, it's a habit," he said thumping his combat boots to close the distance between them, "You want me to say something else..." His tone was deep and throaty; his blue eyes slowly drank up the delicious sight of pale creamy flesh beneath the layers of her jacket, waiting for his touch. "..Maybe I can call you my best girl...?' She shot him an inscrutable glare. He felt his lips twitch into a shadowy grin.

"Okay, I guess that isn't the best choice...I'm not very good with this...I remember I used to be a smooth talker with dames, but now," He forced out a frustrated sigh, his steps seemed wobbly as he reached to grasp her arm. She grabbed him metal plated arm abruptly; pulling him against her lithe frame. She smiled as she pressed into his ample torso. "Am I losing the game?"

"I'm not keeping score," she said, twisting his body, and suddenly had him pinned against the wall. He was so close he could feel her warm breath across her lips. She looked into his blue eyes, boring deeply into her s with an unquenchable fire. His flesh and blood hand slowly ghosted across he exposed area of flawless and slick ivory of her stomach before it began its journey up towards her breast with slow teasing touches.

"Neither am I..." With that, his lips crashed against hers in a hot and wet embrace.

It was going to get very dangerous...Very, very fast.

With a spark of ignition, Felicity coiled her arms around his broad shoulders in a falter of a heartbeat, blood churned with gushes of liquid heat that impassioned her to grind her hips against his slender and compacted waist.

The wet heat and soft of his full lips drove her mouth into a relentless assault as she devoured him. She felt the marginal relief peeling off her ivory flesh, muscles eased as his metal hand stroked down the ridges of her back, and she sighed against his slightly swollen lips, before shed plunged her tongue deep as she pulled the taste of him back into her throat. His panting whispered against the walls as she hoisted her leg up, digging the heel into the wall, and then lift her other leg until she was straddled over his waist, and planted kisses along the side of his pulsing neck, her fingers threaded through his long, leaden tresses of hair. "You are..." she breathed, tasting the water of his skin coat over her lips. "Hot."

James groaned once he felt one of her free hands dig into his long dark locks and run against his scalp while the other held onto his shoulder to keep her at level with him. Felicity's lips were sweeter and more addicting than any candy he could think of indulging himself with. The more he tasted her, the more he wanted her fully and completely. His metal hand worked its way down her curvaceous back until it palmed her shapely bottom then, he growled, fierce and soul-flinching, hoisted her up off the ground so that her long slender legs wrapped tightly around his waist; bringing them so intensely close to one another they could feel each others backside.

Panting out heavy coattails of breath, James's lips once more claimed hers in a savory interlock that left their tongues dancing and warring for dominance. He moaned softly as he felt her lips take tip of his tongue into her mouth and suck on it. He responded in kind by taking her full plump bottom lip between his own and sucking on it; delighting in the rich throaty moan that came from the back of her throat.

"You should talk."He responded to her compliment. "Too hot, I need to get you out of this damn hellhole." He felt her lips brush up against his pulse point.

"You said I'm you're mission...Well, you're my distraction. Very hot and sweaty distraction." Felicity implored, pulling away from him, but her lips brushed over his mouth, just enough to leave a chaste kiss. Her nose crinkled at the wafting stench erupting from his pores. He was slacken with sweat, grime and metal. "I am so going to get in trouble...I'm supposed to focus on the mission...Wait, now I'm saying mission..."

James felt a small smile build on the edge of his bruised lips when he listened to her humorous rant, "Sometimes there can be necessary distractions during missions. The main thing is you got the book in the sewers."

She nodded and linked her arm over the span of his shoulders, "Let's get out of here before the rats decide to put us on the dinner menu.."

"You know, I almost forgot how fun life can be..." James remarked with a nostalgic smile, still holding her in his arms.

Felicity stroked her thumb over his warm bottom lip, wiping off the strain of her lipstick while she stared into his vibrant blue embers. She sighed contently, "Yeah..." That was all she could muster up, still feeling intoxicated by the kiss. She stiffened her breasts against his firm chest. "Stick with me, an I'll show the ropes...You need a new identity-passports and wardrobe-unless you like the modern day wolf man look?" she teased, with a little snort. "You need a last name...Snow...Winter...Frost?"

"I'll let you decide," he whispered lightly, and soft against her lips.

Felicity took a moment, and then kissed him, hard and breathless, before pulling away and stared transfixed into the darkness of his glassy blue eyes. "James Black.."

"James Black," he replied, with a grateful cadence on his husky voice, a smirk played across his lips "It's something I can live with, easy to remember..."

"Okay," she nodded mildly giggled, and mirrored his smile. "When we get back to the hotel, I'll work my magic on my laptop and create your new indently-Do you want your status to be single?"

"I think I'm unavailable now, since I've got this amazing computer hacker in my life," James smirked mischievously, and interlocked his metal digits with her dainty fingers. "Unless you want me to be single?"

Felicity shook her head wordlessly, curled his fingers against her palm. She squeezed his hand, not caring if she broke her fingers against the hard metal. "No...You're unavailable...James Winter," she said with a possessive growl, that almost sent shivers down his spine.

James cupped her cheek with his flesh hand, tilting her head up, and overpowered her lips with another kiss, "Hell yeah, Miss Smoak."

Felicity smiled against his lips, the smile extended into a grin. Even with her heart fluttering in chest and doubt searing into her bones, she couldn't stop but feel alive...For once in her life time, she felt loved.


	10. Chapter 10

**(10)**

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><p>The sky was dimming. Steve sat in a booth wedged in a corner as far away from the public as he could manage, his light blue eyes settled on a half eaten banana chocolate chip muffin that didn't agree from the swirling bile gushing around in his stomach. He didn't want to eat another bite. He was sick and felt downgraded by his own resilience of finding Bucky. He spent his whole life carrying the burdens of guilt on his shoulders, a heavy weight of loss and failure. It was his pain to bare, no else need to cut his heart open and see the torn holes inside. Silently he propped his head up on his palm, elbow resting on the edge of the table. His fingers gripped a pen as he started doodling on a napkin.<p>

"Why are you risking your life to find someone who wants to kill you?" Sam whispered sharply, placing a tray of coffee and donuts in front of the displaced soldier. "He doesn't deserve your help. The man he was, I mean the friend you knew may still be inside that monster, but you can't walk up to him and pretend that everything is going to be alright. You'll just be fooling yourself, Steve."

"Fooling myself?" Steve parroted, in a strained voice. "My best friend as been turned into silent killer for HYDRA, and you want me to stand on the sidelines and do nothing?" His cheeks locked with levels of tension formulating in his blood stream. The world had changed in the last few months...Weeks. It was full of secrets, nightmares and twisted perversions and inhuman acts against humanity. It wasn't the world he fought for in the war. People were cut throat, and machines equalized human error and perfection. He was ready to toss the shield and walk away from it. He couldn't turn his back on a friend who used to be his protector and big brother. "A good soldier never backs down from the fight, there is always a way to have victory. It may have a high price...I'm willing to bet it all if helps give Bucky freedom from that damned world they sucked him under."

Sam took a sip, and nodded, "We've looked through every safe house location within the city. HYDRA likes to keep everything left in the dark."

Steve sighed. He didn't want to hear this. "Natasha said Bucky is a ghost..." His newest ally arched an eyebrow. "I know where ghosts like to haunt..In the shadows."

"If HYDRA is operating in the shadows, we need to be prepared." Sam insisted, looking into the super-soldier's deep blue eyes. "We need someone watching our back in the high places...Someone that knows how to infiltrate without being seen..."

Everything went numb in his body. Steve tried to ignore the smoldering remorse simmering in his veins, but it became consuming to ease away. He had been chasing ghosts, infiltrating safe houses located in dark places of the city, he wasn't prepared to risk another life-he didn't deserve to find Bucky, not after he failed in that split condemning second when he reached for the young sergeants hand. He'd spent two days after the siege of Zola's train in the snowy Alps, sitting in desolated room of an abdomen farm house, drowning his lungs with whiskey as tears of anguish flowed down his chiseled cheekbones and jaw, drinking his sorrow away. He never got drunk.

Hope seemed to be dwindling out of him, sighing out the frigid air collected in his raw lungs, Steve advanced down a back alley. His leather boots sloshed in the clusters of puddles as he moved closer to the last location of HYDRA's safe houses.

He felt pressure in his chest, a greasy contortion of malice and exhaustion gathered on the bones of his rib cage. It became harder for him to breathe, his vision swam as foggy images of dark figures invaded his mind and voice of Armin Zola tortured him with sordid taunts of with Bucky's name in the middle of the toxic laced webs of HYDRA's darkness. He fell deeper into the nightmares and delusions his wounded soul conceived.

_Inside Zola's inhumane laboratory in the green haze of light, a captured Bucky Barnes was strapped down flat on an operating table, handsome face of youth was ashen and gleaming with fever. His eyes diluted with a fresh layer of tears masking over the clear warmth of his pale blue eyes of unbreakable fire. His full lips swollen with lash marks on the edges, smudges of blood encased over his sharp cheekbones and his five-eleven form shivered with coldness. He managed to look at Zola, trying to reach out for him with every ounce of his strength._

_"Can you tell me your name?" The Swiss doctor requested with spiteful tone. His rounded face became a hazy blur against the harsh light, as he pulled the metal spikes out of the neck of his victim. He didn't think of his prisoners has broken men, no, they were pigs to the subjection of his merciless tortures. When he would finish draining out their memories and dissecting their humanity, he throw them into iron cages where they would be destroyed from the cube's blue energy. Piles of ash in seconds._

_Bucky felt his heartbeat shutter in his ears. He wanted to scream as jolts of the electronic probes disemboweled his memories, emptying his charming and defiant personalty and thoughts of his addled brain. Everything became thick grayness until he felt numb to breath. His voice had been locked in his vocals as he parted his bloodless lips, and released a wracking cough. It was easy for his inhumane captor to detect spluttering sobs intermixed with harrowing panic."I am Sergeant 32557..."_

_Displeased, Zola tore his eyes away, and looked at the tall shadow in the doorway, "The operation of subjected of the mind was a failure. Test subject still shows resilience to serum." He narrowed his eyes down at the folder in his clutch and shook his head. He looked up once more, and stared into the cold dark eyes of his master. "We need to perform full extraction on Sergeant Barnes. Erase his mind and corrupt his system with my batch of formula. If he shows weakness during the process of transformation, he will be terminated."_

_A leather gloved hand emerged from the shadows and pointed at Bucky, "Do not fail me, Doctor Zola. This soldier will be a benefit to our succession. Double the intakes of the transfusions. I don't care if you have to drain every ounce of his blood...Just make sure that are no errors. I want him ready for battle. No excuses."_

_"Of course," Zola timidly returned, adjusting his glasses. "Everything will be perfected. And Barnes will cease to exist once he finally gives into the serum and becomes..."_

_The flashes of red reflected in his eyes, alarms were screaming and sirens whirring, lights flickered and the echoes of artillery fire dulled his ears. "We're under attack..." Zola stammered, quickly gathering his notes and stuffing the papers into his briefcase. "I will leave the test subject and retrieve him another time." he added, before grabbing his hat, stepping out of the room and hastening down the corridor. He froze at the sight of a soldier advancing toward him, and he took a moment to study the densely muscled figure -he was dressed in leather and carried a spade metal shield on his back. It was Captain America-the allies newest super-soldier-the result of scientific perfection. "Another time," he murmured, and vanished in the murky darkness of the cold, musty and stale hallway._

_The young captain's face morphed into a steel expression, as his blue eyes trained on the stocky doctor. He paced into the obscured room, his boots dragged on the rough cement floor as he stalked closer, peering at shelves of different jars and tin containers. He clenched his jaw, feeling the tightness of his chin strap against the firm skin. Steve paused in front of bookshelf, staring doubtfully. He didn't like the look of medical equipment lain on the metal carts. It seemed disheartening and horrific._

_Steve drew a deep breath, summoning some measure of resilience. He glanced around suspiciously even through in the pit of his stomach he knew it was mistake. His blue eyes caught vivid images of drops of blood on the floors as the recessed lights dotted him a path towards the corner through the green haze. He walked towards the gleams of silver. Silence had become deep and unyielding. Steve kept his eyes focused on the tables as he entered the clouds of monotonous gray and disappeared into the thick of it. If anyone was there, he would be lucky enough to find corpses, it was obvious by the empowering stench of spilled blood. It was evil._

_"My name is James Buchanan...Barnes...3255..7..."_

_Steve instantly recognized that raspy voice, he turned and followed the faint sobs leering him closer to the steel operating table. He looked down and felt his heart sink. "Bucky..." he gasped softly, his steeped eyes glistened with tears as stared into the dormant blue eyes of his bounded best friend. "What did they do to you?" he growled, looking around the room worriedly. He placed his gloved hand firmly on Bucky's cold shoulder. "Hey...It's me...It's Steve..."_

_Bucky blinked the glaze out of his eyes, and looked up, "Steve," he slurred with a damaged voice, curling his lips into a bright smile. "I knew you would come..." He paused in a breath, blood leaked from his quivering mouth in wonderment. "You..." he coughed harshly. "You need to save yourself.__Get the hell out of here...I don't want to see you in pain."_

_"I'm not leaving without you, Buck." Steve replied in a breathless voice, he placed his gloved hand over the young soldier, sweat-drenched brown hair. "A captain never leaves a soldier behind, Sergeant James Barnes." he grounded out with a stern look in his vivid blue eyes._

_Bucky swallowed and shook his head and squirmed under the leather straps crossed over his chest. "You gotta bail out of here," he coughed, fighting to break free from the restraints pinning him against metal. Tears stained the lines of grime over his face. "I know what want to do with you, Steve. You gotta get out of here."_

_Steve refused to move from the table, he unhooked the straps and placed his hand firmly on Bucky's shoulder. "I will not leave you behind. You're my friend...My best friend, Bucky Barnes."_

_"And you're too dumb to listen," Bucky said n hoarse tone, smiling faintly. He wrapped his arm around the broad span of Steve's shoulders and lifted himself up. "I'm glad you looked back when you did..." He sniffled lightly, trying to regain his hard core defiance. "Nough with the waterworks, let's get the hell out of here before Zola and his loyal German mutts discover your ass."_

_Steve embraced his friend with a light squeeze of his arms, and helped him balance on the floor. "I hope this is the last time I ever have to save you."_

_Bucky blinked the tears out of his eyes and gave him a lopsided grin. "Yeah, me too."_

Steve bashed those heart aching images, allowing the pained tears to leak out of his feverish blue eyes, He regained his inner strength and set his steely resolve on a silent hooded figure sitting at adjacent from their table. He going against the rules of trust, but somehow he felt compelled to walk over and converse with the aloof and shady observer who seemed to be listening to them while sipping a coffee. He was entering a strange and dangerous road, but he cut a few strings holding him back. There was no turning away from this...He had a friend to save.

Making his decision concrete in his mind, Steve straightened from the booth, and causticity walked over to the stranger. "Excuse me?" he said in a pleasant voice, only to find himself staring into invasive steel blue eyes that looked sharp as arrows slicing through flames of remorse, darkened by the hood attached to a dark green sweater that concealed a broad and well chiseled face. "I was wondering if you could help me with something-"

"Depends," a shadowy voice stopped him, and a boot pushed back a chair. A dark smirk twisted over the man's still lips. "Sit and tell me what you need, Captain America...You should I take the liberty of calling you Captain Steve Rogers?"

Steve took an alarming step back from table. He was almost befuddled, and unable to say anything. He felt compromised.

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><p><strong>AN: I wanted to get this chapter as quick as possible. Enjoy and thank you.**


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